World Theatre Research Articles

Valle-Inclán: The Mirroring of the Esperpento

Every year, on World Theatre Day, a leading Spanish playwright is elected to drape a white scarf round the statue of Ramón Maria del Valle-Inclán, which stands on one of Madrid's main thoroughfares, the Paseo del Prado. It is a simple ceremony, emphasising the special place held by Valle in that process of the rehabilitation of the neglected figures of the past, which has been the principal saving grace of the theatre of post-Franco Spain. Here was a dramatist who declared himself as "outside the theatre," who insisted that he wrote his plays without a thought for whether they were performable or not, and much of whose work, for nearly forty years after his death in 1936, was condemned to almost inevitable silence. But a swirl of recent productions of his plays, both inside and outside Spain, along with dramatisations of the odd novel, have belatedly confirmed Valle-Inclán’s reputation on stage as one of the most innovative of twentieth-century playwrights.

Terra Incognita (review)

Reviewed by: Terra Incognita Glenda Frank Terra Incognita. Libretto and direction by Maria Irene Fornes. Score by Roberto Sierra. Co-produced by INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center and The Women’s Project. INTAR, New York City. 19 March–13 April 1997. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Cristobal (Lawrence Craig), Georgia (Candace Rodgers-O’Connor), and Amalia (Jennifer Alagna) in INTAR and The Women’s Project production of Maria Irene Fornes and Roberto Sierra’s Terra Incognita, directed by Fornes. INTAR, New York City. Photo: Martha Holmes For over thirty years, Maria Irene Fornes, a Cuban-born American playwright, has lent an eloquent voice to the disenfranchised and inarticulate. Her knack for tackling big questions with a deceptive simplicity and directness has earned her a growing audience. Her most recent work, Terra Incognita, is a ninety-minute opera with virtuoso singers and a strong atonal score by Roberto Sierra, a Puerto Rican-born composer. The piece is an emblematic tone poem, a glory to the ear. It addresses the problems of historical revisionism and personal responsibility in a world governed not by spiritual and humane values but by the rules of big business. Like Fefu and Her Friends, which gestated for thirteen years, Terra Incognita is a work-in-progress. An early version was staged at the Dyonisia World Theatre Festival in Siena, Italy (25–26 May 1992); a revision was published in Theater 24:2 (1993); and between my two visits to INTAR, the final staging and various lines had been reconsidered, but the core held firm. Terra Incognita substitutes conflict, stage poetry, and historical narratives for a linear plot. The opera is set in a small café in Palos, Spain, where three American tourists—Amalia (Jennifer Alagna) and Rob (Matthew Perri), a sister and brother, and Georgia (Candace Rodgers-O’Connor), their friend—have stopped for coffee. Their desultory conversation (duets and trios) about Prince Henry the Navigator and train schedules is interrupted by a charismatic bum, Cristobal (baritone Lawrence Craig). Once a businessman with a wife and family, Cristobal suffered a breakdown and came to believe he was the reincarnation of Christopher Columbus, whose experiences he appropriates. His disjointed lyrical monologues and inventive tropes (the world as an egg), dance-like antics, and invasions of the tourists’ space (sitting on Georgia’s lap) create confrontations rich in imaginative possibilities. He flirts, bullies, and cajoles, leading us through the dark landscape (“the terra incognita”) of the human soul. He is the voice of big business as he assures us that the mutineering crew, the naive natives, and the rich, virgin land were raw products to be molded into profit. The women, alternately repelled and spellbound, follow him in a spirited conga line. His brown-frocked alter-ego, Bartolomé (tenor John Muriello), a disconsolate monk who seems as timeless as the Spanish hills that surround the café, also demands their attention. He is the counterposed voice of conscience. Most of his lines were taken from Friar Bartolomé de las Casas’s report to King Ferdinand of Spain. Fornes has included extensive program notes to clarify the historical references. Bartolomé’s laser-like concentration is in stark contrast to Cristobal’s fractured riffs and sweeping choreography. In a coup de théâtre, the monk transforms a large white cloth into a wind-filled sail and talks us through “coming about” and “tacking” in a visual evocation of a sea voyage. But his narrative soon turns to the “terra incognita” of America and graphic tales of mutilation and torture. In one of the most tender moments of the opera, Amalia reaches out for Rob, who has become paralyzed with terror as he listens, and pulls him into the safety of friendship. “Where are we,” Amalia asks, “in relation to all this?” It is the central question of the work. Fornes’s response is couched in the dramatic schema. The three tourists form a modern parallel to the historical forces. Amalia with her erudite trivia and compulsive diary entries (“Rob is getting coffee for himself and me . . . Georgia is having tea,” she writes and sings) is recorded memory. Georgia’s interlude about her new red hat, which she models...

Postcolonial theatre anthropology

Amin, Shahid. Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura 1922–1992. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. xiv + 256 pp. including notes, bibliography, and index. $40.00 cloth, $15.00 paper. Arnoldi, Mary Jo. Playing With Time: Art and Performance in Central Mali. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. xx + 227 pp. including notes, glossary, appendix, bibliography, and index. $29.95 cloth. Gainor, J. Ellen, ed. Imperialism and Theatre: Essays on World Theatre, Drama and Performance. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. xv + 264 pp. including index. $17.95 paper.

Desperately Seeking Asia: A Survey of Theatre History Textbooks

After listening to Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei's remarks as a panelist for Theater Studies in the 21st Century at the 1994 ATHE conference in Chicago, the editor of ATJ asked her to evaluate the Asian sections of major theatre history texts. She concludes that although several current and some out-of-print volumes do incorporate Asian theatre with varying degress of success, the Eurocentric bias continues to thrive in much of American academia. Recent attempts to include Asian materials are sometimes misinformed or misguided, resulting in the continuing marginalization of Asian and other non-Western materials. Nonspecialists will continue to have difficulty navigating the rocky waters of text choice. Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei is professor of theatre at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she currently heads the Ph.D. program and teaches world theatre, Japanese theatre, and playwriting. She is a playwright, director, scholar of cross-cultural performance, and the translator of plays by Terayama Shuji. Professor Sorgenfrei is newsletter editor for the Association for Asian Performance.

: Imperialism and Theatre: Essays on World Theatre, Drama and Performance . J. Ellen Gainor.

American AnthropologistVolume 98, Issue 4 p. 897-898 Imperialism and Theatre: Essays on World Theatre, Drama and Performance. J. Ellen Gainor Stacy Wolf, Stacy Wolf George Washington UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Stacy Wolf, Stacy Wolf George Washington UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: December 1996 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1996.98.4.02a00420AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume98, Issue4December 1996Pages 897-898 RelatedInformation

Imperialism and Theatre: Essays on World Theatre, Drama and Performance ed. by J. Ellen Gainor (review)

Imperialism and Theatre: Essays on World Theatre, Drama and Performance ed. by J. Ellen Gainor (review)

Imperialism and Theatre: Essays on World Theatre, Drama and Performance. Edited by J. Ellen Gainor. London and New York: Routledge, 1995; pp. xvi + 264. $17.95 paperback. - Playing Out the Empire: Ben-Hur and Other Toga Plays and Films, 1883–1908. A Critical Anthology. Edited with Introductions and Notes by David Mayer. Essay on the incidental music for toga dramas by

Imperialism and Theatre: Essays on World Theatre, Drama and Performance. Edited by J. Ellen Gainor. London and New York: Routledge, 1995; pp. xvi + 264. $17.95 paperback. - Playing Out the Empire: Ben-Hur and Other Toga Plays and Films, 1883–1908. A Critical Anthology. Edited with Introductions and Notes by David Mayer. Essay on the incidental music for toga dramas by

Robert Lepage: Quelques zones de liberté

As I write (late April, 1996), Robert Lepage’s stock seems to have dropped several points, at least on the Toronto market. By the time you read this it may well have risen to its former levels or beyond, but just now people who had bought heavily into Lepage are worried that they may have overextended themselves and are hurrying to cover their positions. The reason is, quite simply, Elsinore (Du Maurier World Theatre Festival). After last year’s enthusiasm for The Seven Streams of the River Ota, Toronto audiences are afraid, not so much that the emperor after all has no clothes, but that he may not have much else. The trappings and the suits of woe were certainly dazzling – eat your heart out, Doug Henning! – but the signs of that within which passeth show were a bit scanty. And of course it didn’t help that on one night of the run, the elaborate contraption on which Elsinore entirely depended crashed on take-off, leaving frustrated passengers to make other plans. But that’s part of the Lepage mystique, and helps to generate that “espèce de trac ultime [ultimate stage-fright] provoqué par l’espace vierge dans lequel nous naviguons.” And he adds that “Pour moi, si on ne cherche pas à tout réinventer du théâtre, ce n’est pas intéressant” (124).

Imperialism and theatre: essays on world theatre, drama and performance

Imperialism is a transnational and transhistorical phenomenon; it occurs neither in limited areas nor at one specific moment. In cultures from across the world theatrical performance has long been a site for both the representation and support of imperialism, and resistance and rebellion against it. Imperialism and Theatre is a groundbreaking collection which explores the questions of why and how the theatre was selected within imperial cultures for the representation of the concerns of both the colonizers and the colonized. Gathering together fifteen noted scholars and theatre practitioners, this collection spans global and historical boundaries and presents a uniquely comprehensive study of post-colonial drama. The essays engage in current theoretical issues while shifting the focus from the printed text to theatre as a cultural formation and locus of political force. A compelling and extremely timely work, Imperialism and Theatre reveals fascinating new dimensions to the post-colonial debate. Contributors: Nora Alter; Sudipto Chatterjee; Mary Karen Dahl; Alan Filewood; Donald H. Frischmann; Rhonda Garelick; Helen Gilbert; Michael Hays; Loren Kruger; Josephine Lee; Robert Eric Livingston; Julie S. Peters; Michael Quinn; Edward Said; Elaine Savory.

Imperialism and Theatre: Essays on World Theatre, Drama and Performance. Edited by J. Ellen Gainor. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Pp. xvi + 264 + illus. £40/$55.95; 12.99/17.95.

Imperialism and Theatre: Essays on World Theatre, Drama and Performance. Edited by J. Ellen Gainor. London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Pp. xvi + 264 + illus. £40/$55.95; 12.99/17.95. - Volume 21 Issue 3

Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon, 1995-96

In its brochure advertising 1995-96 Stratford season Royal Shakespeare Company defined itself as the finest actors and directors working great plays in some of best theatre spaces in and promised World Theatre. One can hardly blame any company for setting out its stall as attractively as possible, so there is no need to require that possibly or perhaps be inserted in this kind of statement. However, actual achievements of 1995-96 season suggest that some questioning is in order. If in this marketing context Classical means mainly well-known plays from an established repertoire, choice of plays for season did justify this claim. But if Classical implies a distinct performance style or tradition, as it does in dance, or if World Class is to be understood as on a par with best available anywhere, there was room for doubt. Distinctive ingredients of world-class classical theater should include innovation, a dynamic relationship with what is familiar and traditional, and an ability to make old texts new without ceasing to be attentive to their expressive idiom. Having proclaimed itself world class and classical, what did RSC deliver? The season offered only five Shakespeare productions in Stratford's three theaters. The main house presented a challenging Richard III (which Robert Smallwood discusses pages 326-29) and a vigorous and quirky Shrew, but other main-stage productions, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar, were lackluster affairs. In Swan Theatre, one of best spaces for his plays, Shakespeare was represented briefly by The Tempest, which was paired with Edward Bond's Bingo. The quasi-Elizabethan space was also used for a lively staging of The Devil is an Ass but otherwise hosted plays written later than those for which it was designed: Chekhov's Cherry Orchard (directed by Adrian Noble and best production in company's season), Ian Judge's flamboyant Relapse, and Michael Bogdanov's assault both parts of Goethe's Faust. At Other Place were Calderon's The Painter of Dishonour, an adaptation of William Golding's Lord of Flies, and Euripides's Phoenician Women. The season's most challenging piece of scheduling was coupling of The Tempest and Bond's Bingo, directed by Sam Mendes for a tour that took in British regions and Vienna. Between 14 July and 24 August tour visited Swan; there were twenty-six performances of Shakespeare's play and five of Bond's, which reflects relative viability of two plays at Stratford box office. (And indeed elsewhere: reportedly many regional venues were reluctant to take Bingo at all.) Paul Jesson played Shakespeare and Prospero; Sarah-Jane Holm was Judith Shakespeare and Miranda; and Ben Jonson and Caliban were played by Dominic Letts. The usurper Antonio was cast opposite incarnation of new entrepreneurial spirit, William Combe (Daniel Flynn), and Bonnie Engstrom was Shakespeare's Ariel and Bond's vagrant and victimized Young Woman. Developments in British politics since 1970s, when it was first produced, have not diminished force of Bond's picture of 1600s as a money-get, mechanic age, but his grim reduction of Shakespeare to an impotent, inarticulate, and weakly complicit burgess still seems calculated to antagonize rather than persuade-at least in Stratford context. The reviewers' consensus was that Shakespeare's play came out a long way ahead of Bond's. Parallel casting only works, of course, when audiences are able to compare and contrast, but

Shakespeare at The Globe in Tokyo: A Crossroad of World Theatre

The Globe Tokyo opened in April 1988, and has now been in operation for seven years. I have been with the theatre since its opening, as assistant producer from 1988 until last year, and as its program manager since then. The theatre is five minutes’ walk from Shin-Okubo station, on the loop line in northwestern Tokyo, and is located on the southern border of a neighbourhood where older, low-level structures are being replaced by high-rise apartment buildings. It is three storeys high, plus a basement, and is unusual for Tokyo theatres in that spectators can walk directly from the street into the theatre without the use of a staircase. Architect Isozaki Arata made every effort to design a reconstruction of the original Globe Theatre, basing his plans on contemporary records (De Witt’s drawings of the Swan, and the Fortune contract) of the theatre where Shakespeare staged his plays on the south bank of the Thames. Modern concessions, however, were made in stage machinery, lighting, and sound, as well as in the addition of a roof so as to ensure year-round performances. A square open stage extends into a circular auditorium, and is surrounded by a three-tiered gallery of seats. An actor at downstage centre would be standing in the very middle of the circle. The thrust stage can be adjusted to accommodate anywhere between five hundred and seven hundred seats.

Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture

In this passionate and controversial work, director and critic Rustom Bharucha presents the first major critique of intercultural theatre from a 'Third World' perspective. Bharucha questions the assumptions underlying the theatrical visions of some of the twentieth century's most prominent theatre practitioners and theorists, including Antonin Artaud, Jerzsy Grotowski, and Peter Brook. He contends that Indian theatre has been grossly mythologised and taken out of context by Western directors and critics. And he presents a detailed dramaturgical analysis of what he describes as an intracultural theatre project, providing an alternative vision of the possibilities of true cultural pluralism. Theatre and the World bravely challenges much of today's 'multicultural' theatre movement. It will be vital reading for anyone interested in the creation or discussion of a truly non-Eurocentric world theatre.

The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre

The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre is a new, illustrated, single-volume reference that emphasizes international theater and performance in its broadest sense. A-to-Z entries provide clear and concise information on traditions, theories, companies, playwrights, practitioners, venues and events. More than 300 photographs and drawings supplement the text to make this the ideal resource for theatergoers, general readers, students and professionals. The Guide contains an entry for any country with a significant theatrical past or present, from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe, exploring areas of world theater that are neglected in many contemporary works of reference. National entries explain the history and nature of theater movements, identifying prominent figures and activities. Information is given about not only the personalities and practice of Shakespeare's theater but also about performance in such places as Brazil, Nigeria, India and Japan; a short bibliography for further reading is also provided. The popular origins of theatrical traditions in ritual and festival are explained in The Guide and separate entries cover folk drama, street theater, mummer's plays, and many other types of performance. This comprehensive reference also includes reliable biographical and critical essays on the established leaders of the field, renowned actors, directors, and designers. It is filled with extensive cross references that lead the reader from one entry to another. The Guide also takes into account radio and television drama, ballet and opera in their theatrical context, and covers dance and music where they clearly interact with theater as performance. Martin Banham is Director of theWorkshop Theater in the School of English of the University of Leeds, and author of several books on drama and theater. Editorial Advisory Board: James R. Brandon, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Ruby Cohn, University of California at Davis; Christopher Innes, York University, Ontario; Peter Holland, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge; Tice L. Miller, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Peter Thomson, University of Exeter; Don B. Wilmeth, Brown University, Rhode Island; George Woodyard, University of Kansas

Deep Culture: Thoughts on Third–World Theatre

Does vague approval for the social objectives of much third-world theatre blind sympathetic western observers to its defects? And, where those objectives are specifically socialist, are the complex dialectics which generate revolution too readily supplanted in favour of simplistic affirmation? R. G. Davis takes examples from his own experience in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Algeria to propose a closer, more active, and inter active attention to the relationship between theatre and national needs, based in a lateral approach to what theatre can and cannot do well. R. G. Davis was founding director of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and is currently teaching at San Francisco New College, while working on two films and a book. He has been a regular contributor to Theatre Quarterly and NTQ – most recently, on ‘The Politics and Packaging of Performance Art’ in NTQ13 (1988).

Classical Spanish Drama on the Contemporary French Stage

The new Cambridge Guide to World Theatre affirms that Calderón is rarely staged outside Spain. Henry Sullivan's 1983 book establishes that this generalization has not been true with respect to the German lands, and it likewise does not apply to France. Calderón may be considered an integrated playwright in French repertory. Several of his works have been performed repeatedly in stagings that have received national visibility; in 1982 his name was added to the roster of the Comédie Française. La Celestina , first staged in French by Albert Camus in Algeria in 1936, has also had notable productions in France, including a controversial one at the Comédie Française in 1975. Among Golden Age playwrights, Cervantes, particularly his entremeses , continues to enjoy popularity in France. Indeed Golden Age drama has been associated in France with popular theatre, as defined by Jean Vilar and Roger Planchon. The sometimes unacknowledged French debt to Spanish drama is foregrounded in two plays from the 1970s in which the original Spanish authors become characters in the French texts: Dennis Llorca's production of Corneille's Le Cid and Eduardo Manet's metaplay based on Ruiz de Alarcón's Las paredes oyen . The statement in the Cambridge Guide notwithstanding, Spanish classical drama, particularly Calderón, does play north of the Pyrenees. (PZ)

The World Theatre Festival, Nancy, 1963–88: a Critique and a Retrospective

Unlike Avignon, still active after more than forty years, the once notorious Nancy Festival has slipped unobtrusively into history. David Looseley sets out here to trace this itinerary. After reviewing the festival's origins and its importance for the experimental theatre of the 1960s, he examines what became of it in the bleaker decades which followed, and assesses the meaning of its decline. David Looseley, who teaches in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Bradford, is currently engaged in research funded by the Leverhulme Trust into the politics of culture in contemporary France. His published work includes a book on the theatre of the twentieth-century French dramatist Armand Salacrou.

Mask and scene: an introduction to a world view of theatre

This book examines the most important theatrical conventions and explains how they have been used. Through a history of world theatre and its conventions_occasion, stage space, mask and costume, speech, movement and gesture, the play, scenery, and music_Diana Devlin reveals how the illusion of theatre has been created in past ages and passed on to modern times. With a new section, 'Further Study,' by William B. Stern.

Kabuki in Korea

Koreans feel uneasy about Japan not only in political and military matters but in economic and cultural affairs as well. Korea achieved its independence from Japanese military rule with Japan's defeat in World War II nearly fifty years ago, and twenty-five years ago, in 1964, diplomatic relations were restored between the two countries. But only in the last few years have cultural exchanges between Japan and Korea even begun. The first Japanese live performance to be seen in Korea in nearly half a century was the buto group Byakkosha, at the 5th Third World Theatre Festival in Seoul in 1981.

Critical Essays on Edward Albee ed. by Philip C. Kolin, J. Madison Davis, and: Conversations with Edward Albee ed. by Philip C. Kolin

Reviews103 the Folio is a deliberate revision, and that modern composite editions obscure the changes which Shakespeare intended. JOHN WASSON Washington State University Critical Essays on Edward Albee, ed. Philip C. Kolin and J. Madison Davis. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986. Pp. ix + 222. $35.00. Conversations with Edward Albee, ed. Philip C. Kolin. Jackson and London : University Press of Mississippi, 1988. Pp. xxix + 223. $26.95; paperbound, $15.95. Playwright Edward Albee, now more than sixty years old, may still have some surprises in store for us, but the basic shape of his career is established. The critical perspective and the ready access to important material provided in the two books under review are therefore entirely welcome. Critical Essays on Edward Albee, edited by Philip C. Kolin and J. Madison Davis, reprints or excerpts sixteen reviews and twenty essays covering most of Albee's major work. The essays are divided into two groups: the first, entitled "Albee and the World Theatre," seeks to place Albee in terms of traditions and influences (especially the Theater of the Absurd), while the other, entitled simply "Criticism," contains treatments of individual plays or of patterns that inform several plays. Eight of the essays comment substantially on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and, taken together, they illustrate the play's richness through the variety of interpretation they offer. Highlights among the essays include: Brian Way's careful demonstration of Albee's use of, and departure from, the Theater of the Absurd; Bernard F. Dukore's intriguing suggestion that Euripides' Medea is an important classical precedent for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; and M. Gilbert Porter's deft unraveling of the tangled relationships of A Delicate Balance. In addition to the reprinted essays, several items were written specifically for this volume: Matthew C. Roudané conducts a short interview with Albee; Lea Carol Owen lists, annotates, and indexes seventy-five Albee interviews; and, most importantly, Kolin and Davis provide in their "Introduction" an extremely useful survey of the current state of Albee criticism. Since this volume appeared in 1986, there have been booklength bibliographies on Albee by Richard Tyce and Scott Giantvalley; Kolin and Davis' "Introduction," however, remains a useful starting point for research because it is sensibly selected, it is organized by play, and it identifies the major critical trends on each of Albee's works. Conversations with Edward Albee, edited by Kolin, is a useful companion to the preceding volume. In it Kolin reprints or transcribes twenty-seven interviews with Albee from 1961 to 1986, including a number of broadcast interviews not in print anywhere else. Although we hear rather too often about stupid critics and lazy audiences in these interviews, Albee yields some important revelations. He confirms the interpretation that Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has an "affirmative conclusion" (p. 153); he disagrees with the common critical opinion that A Delicate 104Comparative Drama Balance is about the "demands and responsibilities of friendship" (p. 180); he postulates an idea of "catharsis" that possibly gives an important clue to the emotional impact of his plays (p. 99); and he repeatedly offers an intriguing analogy between writing plays and composing music. Kolin supplies an excellent index so that teachers and critics can readily find Albee's comments on various topics and on each of his plays. PHILIP J. EGAN Western Michigan University International Bibliography oí Theatre The fourth volume of the International Bibliography of Theatre (1985) has been published. As in the case of each of the previous volumes of the IBT, the 1985 volume is considerably enlarged over its predecessor. The 1985 issue contains 1,100 pages with 5,000 references to books and periodical articles and 27,000 subject index entries from twenty theatrically active countries. The IBT now indexes 950 international journals, while the Taxonomy of Theatre has become an important document for theater instruction. The 1985 volume is priced at $145, and the complete set of four volumes is offered at $355. The set is a basic research tool for work in theater and drama, and belongs in every major library. Orders should be directed to the Theatre Research Data Center, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Brooklyn...