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Dramaturgyof the Spectator
MarcoDe Marinis
An Unlikely Association
I wish to reconsider here the problem of reception in the theatre as
broadly and with as little theoretical bias as possible. On the one hand, I
will concentrate on results drawn from the work of theatre practitioners
while considering, on the other hand, the hypotheses and data coming
out of the scientific research into this and related matters. This research
has been going on in various fields-often via a multidisciplinary
approach ranging from sociology to experimental psychology, from an-
thropology to history and, of course, to semiotics (see De Marinis 1982,
chapter VII, 1983, 1984, I985).
There is an unlikely association of two terms which we are not general-
ly used to seeing as connected: dramaturgyand spectator.First, an impor-
tant distinction in terminology:
Theatre production of Antigone (1967) when the audience became the peo-
ple of Argus at war with the Thebans, played by the performers. Un-
doubtedly, however, the leading exponent of this solution was Grotowski
in his performances of the early '6os: from Faust (1960), in which the
spectators were guests at the protagonist's table; to Kordian(I962), where
they figured as the inmates of the psychiatric clinic in which the action
takes place; and finally to Akropolis (1962), where spectators, in contrast
to the performers, became survivors of the gas chambers.
This somewhat constricting and basically authoritarian approach to au-
dience participation was later superseded and openly criticized by Gro-
towski, who saw it as counter-productive-rather than deconditioning
the audience, this approach risked blocking and further inhibiting them.
Already by the late '6os, Grotowski was theorizing the transition from a
theatre of participation to one of testimony, thought to be a more authen-
tic form of participation, running deeper than any material involvement
of the spectator (see De Marinis I987).
At this point we must examine how the director and actors work upon
the attention of the spectator. In more exact terms, we must ask what are
the determinant features of this selective attention which is, and always
has been, subject to manipulation by the producers of theatre. At the
same time, it should be clear that it is not only a question of attractingthe
spectator's attention towards one thing but also of distractingit from
something else. For the most part, these two modes of manipulation co-
exist and are largely interdependent-often it is necessary to distract the
spectator's attention from one thing in order to be able to attract it to-
wards another thing. From the receiver's point of view, these modes can
be labeled in more technical terms: focalization, defocalization, and
refocalization.
io8 MarcoDe Marinis
All of us are familiar with the number of resources and the occasional
sleight of hand which theatre practitioners have always used in order to
distract and/or attract the spectator's attention. In the I6th century, for
example, noises or sudden trumpet blasts from the back of the audito-
rium distracted the audience from the stage where the scenery would be
changed in full view in a matter of seconds. Here the lighting, the design,
and the spatial layout are obviously important. On a more general level,
however, the performance text predisposes and directs the spectator's at-
tention by establishing a more or less explicit ranking of all its partial
texts-the spoken text, the gestural text, the scenery, music, sound ef-
fects, etc. Such a hierarchy may be brought into effect in two basic forms:
Putting it simply, this amounts to saying that in order to attract and di-
rect the spectator's attention, the performance must first manage to sur-
prise or amaze; that is, the performance must put into effect disruptiveor
manipulativestrategieswhich will unsettle the spectator's expectations-
both short and long term-and, in particular, her/his perceptive habits.
And the performance must do this by introducing Berlyne's "collative
properties"-elements of novelty, improbability, and oddity-in areas
where the spectator habitually feels certain of her/himself.
I Io MarcoDe Marinis
In their research into theatre anthropology, Barba and his team at ISTA
have identified these "disruptive strategies" largely in terms of the funda-
mental techniques of the actor. They have described these techniques as
"extra-ordinary" or "extra-daily," since they are based primarily on the
transgression of the biological and physical laws governing our "normal"
everyday bodily and mental behavior-the fundamental laws of gravity,
inertia, and the rule of least effort. According to Barba, the following
theatrical principles all transgress these laws and form the basis-both
intercultural and pre-expressive-of performer's techniques:
Conclusions
FRUSTRATION/SATISFACTION OF EXPECTATIONS
"In my opinion, there are two aspects to the enjoyment which theatre
can give: surprise and the joy of finding the same thing over again." This
recent declaration by Italian director Luca Ronconi serves as a useful
reminder of a risk which is undoubtedly present in a certain way of han-
dling the question of attention in the theatre. This is the risk of maintain-
ing that the "proper" functioning of the performance, its success and pull
on the audience, depend exclusively on the disruptive strategies it uses. In
short, the risk is in seeing only the irregular and unexpected as being able
to produce interest and entertainment in the theatre. Certainly, for exam-
ple, Barba's theories regarding the extra-ordinary, despite their obvious
importance, come at times dangerously close to just such a view and
betray links with certain outdated avant-garde poetics.
More in keeping with the facts as they stand, and more important from
a theoretical viewpoint, seems to be an acceptance that theatrical pleasure
arises and is maintained in an unbroken dialectic between the frustration
and satisfaction of expectations. The fragile balance is kept between the
pleasure of discovery, the unexpected, and the unusual, on one hand, and
the pleasure of recognition, deja vu, and the anticipated on the other. To
upset this balance in either direction means threatening the success of the
complex communicative interaction which constitutes the very life of the-
atrical performance.
Notes
i. For more detailed informationregardingthese principles, see Barba 1981,
I983a, I983b, I985 and De Marinis 1986.
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