Issues in Performance 3

Angels in America

Semiotics (Mark Fortier)

Key texts include:
Alter, Jean A Socio-Semiotic Theory of Theatre
Elam, Keir Semiotics of Theatre and Drama
Pavis, Patrice Languages of the Stage: Essays in
the Semiology of Theatre
Ubersfeld, Anne Reading Theatre

Key theorists in the development of

semiotics:
Ferdinand de Saussure
Charles Pierce
Roland Barthes

Jiri Veltrusky
Veltrusky: Everything on stage is a sign.
Everything on stage communicates
something to the viewer; everything is
understood to be deliberate.
Pierce: different kinds of relationships
between the signifier and the signified:
icon, index, symbol.
Theatre is generally an iconic art form:
objects on stage tend to represent objects
in the real world by similarity.

Revision (DRA107)
Explain what benefits there are to
using a semiotic approach to the
analysis of performance.
What are the limitations to a semiotic
approach to the analysis of
performance?

Phenomenology
Key theorists: Edmund Husserl;
Martin Heidegger; Maurice MerleauPonty; Jean-Paul Sartre (philosophy);
Bert O. States and Stanton B. Garner
Jr. (theatre phenomenology).
Phenomenology is concerned with
how the world appears (as
phenomena) to the humans who
encounter it; what it is like to be alive
in the world and how we perceive the
world around us through our senses.

 Theatre has a special relationship with the senses

because it presents itself as something to be seen
and heard, and perhaps touched, tasted and
smelled;
It is also concerned with the way humans think
and act in the world, with a sense of time,
memory and intention. Example of Act without
Words 1 by Samuel Beckett (Fortier, p.38-9)
Rayner: the thickness of action, the complexity
of action: action is made visible or made strange
(actualized) in theatrical performance but it is
much larger than theatre or drama (p.40)
World/Earth distinction (p.41): the earth exists
anyway; the world is what we perceive around us.

 Phenomenologists argue that theatre

should attempt to reconnect us with
our lives, and reawaken our
awareness of the world around us. It
should not represent the world, it
should be part of it, it should effect a
transaction between consciousness
and the thickness of existence
(States, qtd. Fortier p.43).

Deconstruction
Arche writing [consider archetype]
Diffrance [difference and deferral]
Deconstruction: a reading process
whereby the hidden and
unacknowledged metaphysical
assumptions (of truth, presence,
identity, essence and so forth) and
complicities of any particular text are
unravelled from within and in the
texts own terms (Fortier, p.65).