Representation Of Life Research Articles

‘일상’으로 귀환하는 텍스트 : 『우리 읍내』와 『외계인들』을 통해 보는 포스트-포스트드라마적 대안으로서의 ‘일상극’

일상극이라는 라벨을 달고 등장하는 최근의 연극들이 많은 비평적 도전, 혹은 비난에 직면하는 이유는 철학적 주제로서의 일상성에 대한 고찰이 결여된 채, 일상의 지리한 반복성만을 표피적으로 재현하는데 급급해 있기 때문이다. 본 논문은 이러한 문제의식에서 출발해, 무대에서 재현될 가치가 있는, 즉 철학적 각성의 계기를 마련하는 연극적 주제로서의 ‘일상’이란 구체적으로 어떤 것을 의미하는지에 대해 고찰해보고자 한다. 이를 위해, 일찍이 일상을 철학적 대상으로 선포한 바 있는 앙리 르페브르 Henri Lefebvre의 일상론과, 서로간의 긴밀한 상호텍스트성을 드러내고 있는 스촌디 Peter Szondi와 루카치 Georg Lukács의 현대 연극론 등이 인용될 예정이다. 일상성이라는 소재의 담론적 위상을 고찰한 뒤에는, 실제 이러한 일상성에 관한 소재를 활용해 현대인의 존재 조건을 가장 면밀하고도 적확하게 재현해내는데 성공한 일상극의 전범들―『우리 읍내 Our Town(1938)』, 『외계인들 The Aliens』(2010)―의 면면을 살펴보면서, ‘일상성’이 ‘연극성’과 만나서 이루어내는 흥미로운 효과들, 즉 왜 일상 ‘소설’이나 일상 ‘시’가 아닌 일상 ‘연극’이어야 하는지를 구체적으로 살펴볼 예정이다. 이러한 과정을 통해 포스트드라마 이후, 즉 ‘포스트-포스트드라마’가 담아내야할 가장 이상적인 이야기와 문제의식의 한 경로를 탐색해보고자 하는 것이 이 논문의 궁극적 목적이다.

Theatre Directing and the Use of Multimedia in Nigerian Theatre: A Study of Segun Adefila’s Production of “Omo Dumping”

Live theatre in Nigeria is in a declining state because of the absence of patronage from Nigerian audiences. A lot of reasons have been advanced for this phenomenon such as the rise of the television and video mediums, the security situation in the country, poor quality of productions due to in adequate fund etc . However, a major cause of the current state of live theatre in Nigeria is as a result of the old fashioned style of interpreting plays that many Nigerian directors are stuck with, and their inability to adopt a media fri endly play production approach that align s with the present social realities of the time. The contemporary Nigerian audience is technology savvy, and would love to see technological traits in theatre productions. As such, Nigerian directors are challenged to employ a media friendly approach in their play interpretations. The foregoing is the aim of this study as this research examines the art of directing and the use of multimedia in Nigerian theatre, using Segun Adefila’s production of “Omo Dumping” as a case study. The study employs the case study and content analysis research approaches of the qualitative research method to realize set objectives, and adopts Hans-Thies Lehmann’s theory of “Postdramatic Theatre” as its theoretical framework. The study observed that the use of multimedia in the production of “Omo Dumping” added more visual impact to the story and enriched the production’s aesthetic vocabulary. It therefore recommends that Nigerian directors embrace the use of multimedia in their productions.

Opera director Armen Kaloyan: his handwriting in art

The article covers a new name in the modern opera theatre of Ukraine – opera director Armen Kaloyan outlining his search for his own creative style. Since 2016, he has held the position of Chief Director at Kharkiv National Kotlyarevsky University. Leading opera directors’ influence on his creative growth is revealed. His teacher was Alexander Barsegyan, Ukrainian director, general director at the Kharkiv’s Pushkin Academic Russian Drama Theater. Before taking on that position, Barsegyan had been working for three years as the head of Kiev Operetta Theater. Kaloyan’s work as an assistant of Stanislav Gaudasinsky, opera director at the Mikhailovsky Theater in St. Petersburg (Russia) and the head at the creative opera studio at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, became an extremely interesting school for him. An example of the joint work of Armen Kaloyan with another well-known opera director is the 2017 th project of the production on the Kharkiv stage of the beautiful opera by G. Bizet “The Pearl Seeker”, where he has worked in a team of Dutch designers led by director Marc Krone. Marc Krone has staged around 300 operas around the world and has his own theatrical school. He worked as an actor for ten years and he is familiar with current trends in the theatrical life of the world’s theaters. He witnessed experiments that determined the theatrical modernity of Western Europe. He has always given a lot of attention to performers’ stage movements, historical fencing and stage fights, and in 2001 received a diploma in the summer school in Sofia, Bulgaria, for performing arts in Rudolf Laban’s technique and contact improvisation in the Monika Koch classroom (London, UK). Among Kaloyan’s students are actors of the trendy elite theater group “Beautiful Flowers” (Kharkiv), which defines itself in new futurological theatrical techniques, in particular plasticity. Relevance of the study. In recent years, Kaloyan has seen through a number of remarkable opera projects, making him the talk of not only the opera community and journalists, but also ordinary audiences. In recent years, A. Kaloyan is seen through a number of remarkable opera projects and has become an object of publications not only in the opera community but also in journalistic circles. He causes delight in ordinary viewers. Such a bright turn in his career makes me look more closely at the figure of the young director, which is briefly covered in the media and largely outside the context of the development of the modern opera house. Armen Kaloyan’s performances have gained considerable popularity with the public, in particular with youth audiences. His success also grew after the guidance of such projects at the opera house as “Night in the Opera”, “Student Night”, Gaudeamus “Opera”, and open air performances: “Taras Bulba” by M. Lysenko in the square in front of Kharkiv Opera House, “Mazepa” in the village of Kolomak within the framework of the festival of Hetman glory. It is rather surprising that no reviews from professionals followed on these bright theatrical events. Nevertheless, every new work of A. Kaloyan’s provokes an active interest in the ordinary audiences and connoisseurs of operatic milieu: to a lesser extent, among the academic music community and music lovers, and much interest among the supporters of modern art. Access to the director’s “backstage” of Armen Kaloyan gives an idea of the nuts and bolts of the work done in his creative workshop. This understanding makes this scientific research really relevant. Main objective of the study. The purpose of the article is to comprehend the creative searches of director Armen Kaloyan in the array of opera performances he created while his artistic personality was being formed, and to identify the peculiarities of his idiosyncratic directorial techniques, or “handwriting”. Methodology. The opera “Carmen” by G. Bizet and “Mazepa” by P. Tchaikovsky are put under investigation. In “Сarmen”, plastic directorial leitmotifs were discovered, which allowed us offering a new reading of this usual opera. In the opera “Mazepa”, a detailed analysis of the libretto is made in terms of changing the concept of the opera in connection with its translation into the Ukrainian language. Conclusions. Armen Kaloyan’s creative search continues, he keeps on doing his studies, as now it is all about self-education and self-improvement in his profession. However, today it can be argued that the young director has found his unique “handwriting”. A. Kaloyan has his own concept of Opera Theater. He is a supporter of the acting theater. A. Kaloyan skillfully makes use of the stage space, thanks to a clearly pre-arranged stage sets and moves. In some cases, when a director comes to the musical scene who is experienced in the drama theater or in the cinema, the results are disappointing. In the case of Armen Kaloyan, on the contrary, opera is enriched, being given a new dimension.

Celebrating Theatre’s Medial Mobillity in the Age of Digitization : Media, Liveness, and Hypermediacy in Annie Baker’s The Flick

This essay seeks to unpack the complex layers of intermedial dynamics in Annie Baker’s 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner The Flick to explain how the play’s incorporation of various media demonstrates theatre’s significant socio-cultural function as a hypermedium in postmodernity. While most reviews of the play focus on the impact of technological change on the human employees or on their human relationship, an important theme that has been overlooked is the intermedial relationship between live theatre and electronic media including film. Despite its absence within the play, theatre is not only constantly evoked in contraposition to the electronic media but also serves as the meta-medium that frames the entire action while integrating all the other media subsumed in it. In terms of theatre’s plurimediality, technological development does not pose a threat to theatre’s distinct mediality but implies an increase in the number of media at its disposal for the diversification of its aesthetics. Understood in intermedial terms, The Flick is a celebration of theatre’s unchanged capability of relating to and utilizing other media, including new ones, as a cultural form of resistance to digitization that blurs media boundaries and the distinction between the real and the virtual.

João Silva, Entertaining Lisbon: Music, Theater, and Modern Life in the Late 19th Century

João Silva, <i>Entertaining Lisbon: Music, Theater, and Modern Life in the Late 19th Century</i>

Specificity of development of the theatrical life of Mariupol in the beginning of XX c.

The article is dedicated to the development of theatrical art in Mariupol at the beginning of 20th century. The theatrical life of Mariupol has not been investigated yet as an original art phenomenon, and therefore, it demands for the detailed studying. There are the repertoire, the role of touring troupes and development of charitable activities of actors in the city described in the article as well. The information was collected from literature, newspapers and funds of local lore museums. The study showed us the rising of ideological and educational value of the scene provincial theaters at the beginning of XX c. In Mariupol worked several theaters, which created conditions for the formation of theater seasons, touring groups' arrivals and also the base for the development of local amateur groups. Performances of guest performers - Ukrainian, Russian and foreign stars of theater scene contributed to the promotion and enrichment of theatrical culture, transforming Mariupol into the cultural centers of the region. The author considers the features of the state policy in the sphere of theatrical art during the Civil War (1917-1920) and in the first years of Soviet government power. The Soviet government made a circle of attempts to use the theater in the business of agitation and propaganda as much as possible. In consequence with nationwide problems, the conditions which theater city institutions worked in, сconsiderably got worsened because of the fact of the demand of entertaining genres in the repertoire of the theaters. Nevertheless, thanks to the safekeeping of the best examples of the theatrical traditions, the priorities in the repertoire policy were given to the Ukrainian, Russian and foreign classics. In conclusion, it may be said also, that theater in Mariupol at the beginning of XX c., was developed, despite the complications that have been appeared under the influence of existing political regime and differed from others in the existence of various professional and amateur groups, wide touring guest activities of the prominent masters of the stage and diverse repertoire.

Effect of an exfoliating skincare regimen on the numbers of epithelial squames on the skin of operating theatre staff, studied by surface microscopy

The shedding of epithelial squames (skin scales) by staff in operating theatre air is an important source of deep infection following joint replacement surgery. This is a serious complication, resulting in significant morbidity for the patient and substantial cost implications for healthcare systems. Much effort has been put into providing clean air in operating theatres, yet little attention has been given to reducing the shedding of surface skin scales at source. To develop a novel method for calculating surface skin scale density using surface microscopy, and to use it to evaluate the effect of a skincare regimen on operating theatre staff. Surface microscopy with Z-stacked imaging was used to visualize the effect of a skincare regimen involving three stages: washing with soap; exfoliation; and application of emollient. A USB microscope was then used in a field study to take images of the skin of operating theatre staff who applied the regimen to one lower limb the night before testing. The other limb was used as a control. Two blinded assessors analysed scale density. Z-stack images from the surface microscope enabled observations of the skincare regimen. The USB microscope also provided adequate images that enabled assessment of skin scale density. In the operating theatre staff, a 72.1% reduction in visible skin scales was observed following application of the skincare regimen. Further work is required to demonstrate how this effect correlates with dispersion of skin particles in a cleanroom, and subsequently in live operating theatre studies.

The Play’s the Thing: Experimentally Examining the Social and Cognitive Effects of School Field Trips to Live Theater Performances

Field trips to see theater performances are a long-standing educational practice; however, there is little systematic evidence demonstrating educational benefits. This article describes the results of five random assignment experiments spanning 2 years where school groups were assigned by lottery to attend a live theater performance or, for some groups, watch a movie version of the same story. We find significant educational benefits from seeing live theater, including higher levels of tolerance, social perspective taking, and stronger command of the plot and vocabulary of those plays. Students randomly assigned to watch a movie did not experience these benefits. Our findings also suggest that theater field trips may cultivate the desire among students to frequent the theater in the future.

Interaction, Narrative and Animation in Live Theatre

Before embarking on their most ambitious project to date, a cosmically-themed participatory theatre event with interactive 3D visuals housed inside a bespoke dome structure, the interactive artists Andrew Johnston and Andrew Bluff joined the director of Stalker Theatre, David Clarkson in a round-table discussion. They reflected on what it was like to combine physical performance with interactive graphics in a childrens theatre show and discussed how the 360° format might be used to explore the cosmos in their upcoming Big Skies production.

ТЕАТРАЛЬНА КУЛЬТУРА МАРІУПОЛЯ В ПЕРІОД НІМЕЦЬКОЇ ОКУПАЦІЇ (1941 – 1943)

The aim of this paper is to explore the main tendencies and changes that happened inside the development of theatre culture of Mariupol during the German occupation 1941 – 1943 years . Until this time, Mariupol theatre art wasn’t studied yet as single cultural phenomena, that is why it needs more detailed exploration. Basing on these memories, published articles and reviews of various theatre critics master, the author has analyzed the specific activities of repertoire, the specific features of touring activities and also highlighted the artistic accomplishments of theatre team during the German occupation 1941 – 1943 years . The main thesis of the article is the theatrical culture of Mariupol during the German occupation 1941 – 1943 years . The author considers the influence of society, « Enlightenment » in the development of theatrical art in the region. Considerable attention is paid to the repertoire, creative search of the cast and the main problems of the theater. In the article examines the role of the Theatre in cultural life of the region's population. The research novelty of the article is specified by its involvement to the research references of new factual material from the history of Ukrainian theatre. So then, at the period explored, the team of theatre has already succeeded with reasonable artistic revenues, it also has become rather than interesting and well-organized ensemble of actors which could decide complicated artistic plans. If the theater had a propagandistic significance for the occupation, for the inhabitants of the region it was able to revive Ukrainian culture, satisfy the basic needs of the population for information, artistic impressions, psychological relief. Despite the hardships of everyday life and prevalence of propagandistic cliches, the cultural life did spring through the cracks and penetrated several domains. Cultural institutions under the Nazi rule, whose history remained shrouded in silence throughout the Soviet rule, still await a serious study. The results of the thesis can be may applied as the theoretical foundation for preparing materials on history and theoretical knowledge of Ukrainian culture, educational courses of cultural science, drama study with its encyclopedia publishers and methodological manuals

From Page to Stage to Screen: The Live Theatre Broadcast as a New Medium

AbstractThe live theatre broadcast has witnessed a phenomenal rise in both popularity and profile over the past decade. This article considers the live theatre broadcast as both a new medium and a form of adaptation. It examines how the medium is ontologically, economically, and culturally positioned between theatre and film, and the extent to which it is, as John Wyver puts it, a ‘hybrid form’. Analyzing the medium in terms of Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, I question how the live theatre broadcast challenges the ‘here’ and the ‘now’ that Benjamin sees as vital to the ‘aura’ of the work of art. I investigate how the live theatre broadcast’s lack of ‘here’ affects audience perception, and how liveness might be seen as a condition of perception rather than of transmission. Exploring Benjamin’s suggestion that film’s celebrization of the actor acts as compensation for the actor’s lack of physical presence, I ask how this concept might inform our understanding of actors in the live theatre broadcast. Finally, the article assesses the extent to which the live theatre broadcast directs the perception of the viewer, and how this direction removes the autonomy of viewing that theatre affords.

Quality assurance in the creative enterprise: an appraisal of select plays of Emeka Nwabueze

Live performances on live stage, the mother medium are no longer common sights in Nigeria. Thus, the waning influence of the live stage in the nation’s contemporary theatre practice is becoming a newly found but embarrassing tradition among young and even some old theatre practitioners. Hence, the problem of this study is the lull in different stages and sectors of the creative industry that led to the decline in live performance. Poor creativity is one of the cancerous worms that is eating deep into the fabrics of the vibrancy of contemporary African theatre practice. Commercial interest, sexploitation and peripheral creativity are now the order of the day. Thus, the aim of this study is how to assure quality in the creative process through adherence to theoretical provisions, professionalism and finesse in the creative process; reinforced with indebt knowledge of the practitioner’s worldview. Objectives include drawing the practitioners’ attention to existing theories and aspiration towards a robust, vibrant and entertaining live theatre. To achieve this creative process based on a marriage of theory and practice; two of Emeka Nwabueze’s plays, Guardian of the Cosmos and A Parliament of Vultures are examined in this article using case study and content analysis research approaches of the qualitative research method. The researchers concluded that adherence to theory can build and sustain quality assurance mechanism and vibrancy into the postmodern African theatre practice.

A Plea for Transgenerational Research in Live Art

For 15 years Theatre of Research (Hamburg) has been bringing together artists, scientists, citizens and children to collaborate as researchers. Working through more than a dozen projects ToR developed a methodology of how to organize this kind of process, using means, practices and formats of Live Art and participatory theatre. The article presents principles of this work as a plea for transgenerational research in performance and Live Art. This includes:The interplay of generations embracing the performative recreation of citizenship, a common future, as well as future commons.The perspective of Live Art and its potential to foster, as well as to be informed by transgenerational encounters and cooperation.The perspective of research as a crucial cultural strategy in its own right, and how the much-needed move towards participatory research practices can be accelerated by including children through the means of Live Art.

Children, Performance and Ecology

This article explores the generative role that child collaborators can have in the development of an ecological performance practice. It elucidates how children might uniquely do the ecological in the context of devising professional contemporary performance. Specifically, this article focuses on a piece of practice-led research, Wild Life - a performance project that sits between choreography, live art and contemporary theatre. Wild Life involved collaborating with eight professional and non-professional performers between nine and 60 years to co-devise a performance that explored and enacted ‘wildness’. The process of co-creating, directing and critically reflecting on Wild Life has led me to propose that intergenerational collaboration is a particularly dynamic performance ecology through which to understand and develop an ecological practice.The main proposition of this article is that the ecological potential of performance lies in the actualities of devising in collaboration with diverse people, where children are treated as capable and skilled artists in their own right who have unique performance aesthetics, styles and abilities. I discuss how child collaborators might significantly enable live theatrical performance to do the ecological in its very modes and moments of enactment. I propose that the spontaneity and pragmatism of, what I call, the just doing-ness of child performers, can implicitly draw attention to what Jane Bennett (2010) describes as the ‘vital materiality’ of the human and, in doing so, performance can draw attention to our inevitable human interconnection and interactivity with(in) vibrant nonhuman matter.This discussion brings diverse fields into dialogue with each other in order to offer a unique discussion on children, performance and ecology. These fields are: performance and ecology; children in contemporary performance; intergenerational practice; and, vital materialism.

Beyond the Bots: Ticked-Off Over Ticket Prices or The Eternal Scamnation

In 2016 alone, despite the passing of federal legislation banning its use, automated ticket-buying software known as “ticket bots” attempted to purchase five billion tickets at a rate of ten thousand tickets per minute on Ticketmaster’s website. The secondary market for tickets to live music, live theater, and sporting matches is worth roughly $8 billion worldwide,[1] and so far, the profits accrued by cyber-scalpers have proven valuable enough for violators to run the risk of facing fines or criminal penalties legislation may impose.It turns out that ticket bots are not the only problem contributing to secondary-market resale and price inflation. Industry insiders such as artists, managers, and producers, have a storied history of reducing the number of tickets actually made available to the general public. In some instances, less than half of available tickets for concert stadium tours have been put on sale.Courts have struggled to protect public interests against monopolization of the free market. They have often employed a “rational basis” test to defend laws prohibitive of ticket resales, including anti-scalping measures. However, with the advent of e-commerce technology, cyber-scalping brings jurisdictional and identification issues to the forefront.This Article suggests that current federal legislation should be amended to ban industry insider hold-back practices and the internal resale of tickets at inflated prices, thus making more tickets available for public sale at face value. This Article further argues for the implementation of non-transferrable paperless ticketing procedures claiming the already proven benefits of such procedures significantly outweigh minor inconveniences to the consumer.Lastly, this Article explores the likely effects of moving the sale and purchase of tickets onto an open-source blockchain that the public can participate in on a global scale. The golden ticket here is that such blockchain technology does away with the need for a central database controlled by a ticket-sale platform vulnerable to scalpers. Instead, blockchain constitutes a decentralized transaction platform that removes scalpers from the equation entirely; tickets exist as digital assets that cannot be transferred outside of the blockchain, rendering ticketing transactions virtually impervious to scalpers and free of the inflammatory forces cyber scalping otherwise superimposes on the marketplace.[1] All dollar amounts are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated.

When Movies Were Theater: Architecture, Exhibition, and the Evolution of American Film by William Paul

Reviewed by: When Movies Were Theater: Architecture, Exhibition, and the Evolution of American Film by William Paul Wes D. Pearce When Movies Were Theater: Architecture, Exhibition, and the Evolution of American Film. By William Paul. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 426 pp. $40 paper. With his new book, When Movies Were Theater: Architecture, Exhibition, and the Evolution of American Film, William Paul has provided readers with a revelatory way to think and critique the early years of film exhibition in the United States. Focusing primarily on the first thirty years of film exhibition, and with special attention paid to New York City, Paul challenges many of the mythologies surrounding the early years of American movie exhibition. Paul's book is meticulously researched and is a rewarding and provocative exploration of a history many people think they already know. Much of Paul's analysis concerns the study of how the architecture of the "movie house" affected both the reception and the evolution of the exhibition of movies. That is, despite the "infinite reproducibility" of the motion picture, Paul argues, "how the image is situated in architectural space" (5) greatly affects spectatorship. I am old enough, although just barely, to remember when movie houses had just one screen, when the interiors of movie houses where awash with outrageous architectural details (such as a proscenium stage) and gloriously campy decor, and when the auditorium fell silent as the giant curtains swept open to reveal the movie screen and the start of something "magical." It is this connection between the site of exhibition and the reception of the "performance," or, as Paul suggests, an "[o]ngoing reciprocal relationship between movies and theaters, between text and context, [End Page 342] that has shaped both our expectations and our actual experiences of what a movie is" (19), that occupies the core of this book. When Movies Were Theater is more than just a revisionist history of early American film history; it is part architectural history, part popular culture history, and part theater history. Of particular interest to theater scholars is Paul's contention that, until the late 1920s, film exhibition and reception (and to an extent production) were inextricably connected to the aesthetics and reception of "legitimate theater."1 Paul challenges the notion that film and legitimate theater were immediate rivals and references many instances in the first thirty years of the twentieth century when film borrowed heavily from legitimate theater in order to legitimize the "moving images." For example, in chapter 2, "Store Theaters: A Radical Break," Paul draws upon several sources, including theater impresario/ moving picture exhibitor S. L. Rothapfel to detail the importance of presenting a varied and deliberate program of moving shorts. This successful type of exhibition programing copied aspects of vaudeville: "The vaudeville inheritance, then, was not left behind when movies moved from the vaudeville theater to a different home [the storefront theater]: rather, it is key to the development of motion pictures" (65). Earlier, Paul suggests that reception of motion pictures and the acceptance of late nineteenth-century staging practices (i.e., realism) both benefited from a new architecture that rejected the horseshoe auditorium and replaced it with an auditorium in which all the seats faced the "picture frame" stage. This new architectural arrangement provided a solution that solved "issues around realism for both live theater and motion pictures" (41). "Realism on stage and realism in motion pictures were oddly connected for contemporary viewers" (41), but the shared experience of the "new" theatrical architecture, be it the storefront theater for motion pictures or a state of the art live theater, allowed spectators to internalize the commonalities of space and reception rather than the differences of the artistic form. One last example of how motion picture exhibition drew heavily from legitimate theater practices to normalize the motion picture experience is found in chapter 5, "Uncanny Theater." In this chapter, Paul discusses the increasingly common practice of motion pictures being exhibited in legitimate theaters and the ensuing problem of space, insofar as "screens at the time ranged from twelve to twenty feet, [and] an 'ordinary stage opening' is … 'forty or fifty feet across'" (195). The solution was the evolution of the...

Littérature “d’en haut”, littérature “d’en bas”? La dramaturgie canonique allemande et le théâtre populaire viennois de Stranitzky à Nestroy by Marc Lacheny

Reviewed by: Littérature “d’en haut”, littérature “d’en bas”? La dramaturgie canonique allemande et le théâtre populaire viennois de Stranitzky à Nestroy by Marc Lacheny Katherine Arens Marc Lacheny, Littérature “d’en haut”, littérature “d’en bas”? La dramaturgie canonique allemande et le théâtre populaire viennois de Stranitzky à Nestroy. Forum: Österreich 2. Berlin: Frank & Timme. 2016. 351 pp. Marc Lacheny has provided scholars of Germanophone theater in the eighteenth and long nineteenth centuries with the book that has long been needed: an extended, eloquently written, and well-documented study of the relationships between the theater cultures of Vienna and the mythical “Germany” of early nationalist fantasy. This volume provides a critical overview of the existing scholarship and a clear vision of the work that needs to be done to counter the stereotypes enshrined in many existing literary histories of Germanophone theater authors. The result sets a new standard for work on the theater landscapes of Germanophone Europe: anyone working on “German” theater in the tradition of Gottsched, Lessing, and Weimar Classicism and anyone working on the “Austrian” Volkstheater or state theaters in the long nineteenth century will run the risk of total irrelevance if Lacheny’s incisive, important map is not accounted for. Littérature “d’en haut”, littérature “d’en bas”? is written from an admirable transnational, thoroughly engaging perspective, using international scholarship on theater both “high” and “low” as well as comparative approaches to redraw our map in an important area of theater studies. In starting from the relationship between “high” and “popular/low” literature in the day, Lacheny refutes the strict lines often drawn between “German” and “Austrian” theaters, the commonplaces in theater histories that set Weimar and the Viennese Volkstheater far apart from each other. Scholars have tended to isolate these different theater cultures on the basis [End Page 117] of nationalism and nationalist cultural politics, overestimating both Austria-Hungary’s purported cultural decadence and the cultural coherency of Prussia-turned-German-Empire. But Lacheny’s project is conceived in ways that, in research and argumentation both, squarely attack the isolation of the privileged place in literary history accorded to figures like Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller by looking at more than theater texts: this is the cultural history of theater in the German-speaking world, not the history of the poetics of plays in German. Lacheny sets these theater cultures onto a dynamic map of European theater to recreate transnational dynamics and moments of cultural contact, thus reclaiming how the Viennese theater functioned within this extended theatrical space. Here, Lessing’s and Schiller’s genius did not necessarily point the way to “real” theater (continued through figures like Hebbel), nor was Vienna known simply for “low comedy” (Nestroy) or drama derivative of the Weimar dioscuri (Grillparzer). Instead, Lacheny shows how Vienna’s dramatic theater and the Viennese popular theater, including its love for satire, were central to European theater conceived more broadly—the charges of “coarseness” that have echoed across theater history all too often arose from aesthetic nationalism rather than judgments of quality. To make this case, the text falls into three parts. The first aims at the myth of Weimar classicism, showing how Lessing and Goethe in particular in fact engaged with the popular theater of the sort that played in Vienna. It reconstructs both the critical debates familiar to Germanists and the dynamics between dramatic and comic theater writing that are usually familiar only to Austrianists. In so doing, he presents a notable aspect of cultural and theatrical life long ignored in scholarship but is now increasingly well documented (notably by Johann Sonnleitner and Matthias Mansky). The second section tracks how German Classicism’s plays were received and reused in Vienna, including accounts of straight dramatic productions and parodies/satires alike. Lacheny follows Karl Kraus as defining what was original in this reception by reference to Nestroy’s theater (Nestroy had even acted Schiller roles until 1830). The third section takes up Grillparzer’s dramas and comedies as revealing specific interactions between traditions, a narrative starting from the fact that the playwright’s uncle published the first collected edition of the works of Philipp Hafner, one...

„Bijący talent dramatyczny”? Wokół emigracyjnej recepcji „Towarzysza Października” Kazimierza Wierzyńskiego

The paper is devoted to the one and only drama of Kazimierz Wierzyński (1894–1969) ‘Comrade October’, written in 1950, and released only in 1992. Its aim is to explain why it was not published immediately after the writing. The author attempts to reconstruct the circumstances of the creation of the work and to effort to publish and exhibit it, as well as to present the state of research. He show the ‘Comrade October’ against the background of emigratory dramaturgy and theater life, which serves to reflect on the political character of the drama and to analyze the reception of his public readings in èmigrè circles (Theatre ‘Pro Arte’ by Olga Żeromska, 1954).

Live Theatre of Conflicts in T-Groups

Live Theatre of Conflicts in T-Groups

“In a Position To Be Treated Roughly”: F. R. Higgins in the Abbey Theatre Minute Books

“In a Position To Be Treated Roughly”: F. R. Higgins in the Abbey Theatre Minute Books Tricia O’Beirne As part of a shared contribution to the Yeats 2015 celebrations and as part of the Abbey Theatre and NUI Galway Digital Archive Partnership that ran from 2012 to 2015, the theater’s minute books for the W.B. Yeats years were digitized and made accessible online. There are seven books, comprising nearly a thousand pages in all.1 They begin in 1904, when Yeats cofounded the Abbey with Lady Augusta Gregory and conclude in 1939, the year of his death. The minute books are written from the perspective of the board of directors and the management of the theater, and as such, they provide insight into the Abbey’s day-to-day business. Despite the formality of tone inherent in the process of recording minutes for board meetings, the Abbey Theatre Minute Books are unexpectedly insightful and revealing of character. Yeats is the sole constant from the company’s genesis up to January 1939, when the minutes record Lennox Robinson’s odyssey to France to try to repatriate the body of his old friend and defender.2 But the minute books also provide a nuanced picture of power dynamics and relationships during this period in the theater’s history. In that context, one larger-than-life personality conspicuously dominates the period from 1935 to Yeats’s death and beyond—one who is rarely noted as an influence on the theater’s policies but who appears involved in every aspect of the Abbey’s artistic and business affairs: the poet F. R. Higgins, whose micromanagement of life in the theater is meticulously detailed during his six-year tenancy on the board and as manager, up to January 1941. Despite his ubiquitous presence, Higgins does not feature heavily in the narratives written about this period of the Abbey’s history. Ernest Blythe, the manager from 1941 to 1967, was undoubtedly the most significant influence in the middle years of the century, but the minute books demonstrate that Higgins was integral to shaping the Abbey’s artistic policies from the thirties to the early [End Page 120] forties. He was also largely responsible for creating an official attitude of resistance to any questioning of the board’s authority. As general manager from September 1938 to his sudden death in 1941, and as Blythe’s predecessor, he helped create a culture amenable to the policies for which Blythe’s directorship is much criticized—policies that steered the Abbey’s artistic choices toward a preference for “kitchen comedies” and “parlourtragedies,” and that favored popular plays over artistic or experimental works. Most academic examinations identify the Blythe years as a conservative and insular era in the history of the Abbey.3 Yet, a close reading of the Abbey Theatre Minute Books for the years preceding 1941 does not identify Blythe as the primary instigator of policy. The minute books reveal the minutiae of theater life during this period. In doing so, they provide an insight into the establishment of the patriarchal culture that remained with the theater for many years to come. Under Higgins’s management, the players lost the access to the board that had been afforded to them by Yeats and Gregory; in his era, the members of the company are continually referred to as subjects requiring control. Those who present a perceived threat—for instance, Frank O’Connor and Hugh Hunt—became the focus of Higgins’s personal vendettas. Teresa Deevy was dropped, without explanation, despite her success as an Abbey Theatre playwright. Women like Ria Mooney, Anne Yeats, and Aideen O’Connor were singled out for harsh treatment. Higgins, it seems, had a compulsion to manipulate those under his management—particularly those who, because of their youth or gender, are perhaps in a position to be treated roughly. Fredrick Robert Higgins (1896–1941) was born in Foxford, County Mayo, into a Protestant family originally from County Meath. He left school early and began earning his living in a building provider’s office in Dublin, becoming an official in the Irish Labour movement after some years. He subsequently worked as an editor of...