Learning Shakespeare's Secret Language: the Limits of ‘Performance Studies’

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Russell Brown
Keyword(s):  
Performance Studies ◽  
Theatre Arts ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Look Back ◽  
University College ◽  
University College London ◽  
Associate Director

As author of one of the pioneering books advocating the study of Shakespeare's Plays in Performance (1966), founder of the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham University, and for fifteen years an Associate Director of the Royal National Theatre, John Russell Brown is in a uniquely authoritative position to look back over the intervening years as ‘Performance Studies’ have increasingly displaced the study of Shakespeare's plays as texts. But has this been as helpful as many, including the author, hoped, when in practice it is so often based on the second- or third-hand recreation of lost and isolated theatrical moments, and fails entirely to give a sense of the progressive experience of watching a play? John Russell Brown here argues for closer attention to what he calls the ‘secret language’ of the plays – implicit instructions to actors that are buried in the texts themselves, at a time when there was no director to encourage or impose a particular interpretation or approach. He concludes: ‘Rather than trying to describe and understand what very different people have made of the plays in very different circumstances and times, we can best study them in performance by allowing them to reflect our own lives.’ John Russell Brown's most recent books are Shakespeare Dancing (Palgrave, 2005) and, as editor, The Routledge Companion to Directors' Shakespeare (2008). In 2007 he was appointed Visiting Professor at University College London.

Voices for Reform in South Asian Theatre

2001 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-53
Author(s):  
John Russell Brown
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Theatre Arts ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Southern Asia ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The University ◽  
Associate Director

The classical theatres of southern Asia are variously treated with the reverence thought due to sacrosanct and immutable forms – or as rich sources for plunder by western theatre-makers in search of intra-cultural building-blocks. The rights and wrongs of this latter approach have been much debated, not least in the pages of NTQ; less so the intrinsic desirability of leaving well alone. At the symposium on Classical Sanskrit Theatre, hosted in Dhaka by the Centre for Asian Theatre in December 1999, an unexpected consensus sought ways in which classical theatre forms might best meet contemporary needs, not only by drawing upon their unique qualities – but also by respecting the injunction in the Natyasastra that the actor must combine discipline with a readiness for improvisation. John Russell Brown here supports the conclusions of the symposium that the qualities of Asian theatre which differentiate it from western forms – of a quest for transformation rather than representation, a concern with emotional truth rather than ideological ‘meaning’ – can best be pursued by such an approach, restoring to the theatre ‘its enabling and necessary role in society’. John Russell Brown was the first professor of Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham, and subsequently Associate Director at the National Theatre in London. More recently he has taught and directed in the USA, New Zealand, and Asia, and is now Visiting Professor of Performing Arts at Middlesex University. The most recent of his numerous books is New Sites for Shakespeare: Theatre, the Audience and Asia (Routledge, 1999).

Performance, Theatre Training, and Research

1996 ◽  
Vol 12 (47) ◽  
pp. 207-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Russell Brown
Keyword(s):  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Theatre Arts ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Present Experience ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Training And Research ◽  
Theatre Studies ◽  
Founder Member ◽  
The University ◽  
Associate Director

John Russell Brown, who was a founder member and first Head of the University of Birmingham's Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, and subsequently an Associate Director of the National Theatre in London, here responds to the article by NTQ co-editor Clive Barker in our May 1995 issue, ‘What Training – for What Theatre’, taking as further text an editorial by Richard Schechner in the Summer 1995 issue of TDR. Currently, as a Professor of Theatre at the University of Michigan, John Russell Brown is teaching a production-based undergraduate acting course, and is also an advisor for Theatre Studies at the University of Singapore and a consultant to the School of Drama at Middlesex University. He draws upon this wide range of past and present experience to explore the issues raised by Barker and Schechner – and to suggest some possible ways forward.

Shakespeare, the Natyasastra, and Discovering Rasa for Performance

2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Russell Brown
Keyword(s):  
Ben Jonson ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Theatre Arts ◽  
Production Studies ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
World Series ◽  
Theatre Production ◽  
History Of ◽  
Associate Director

Recognizing analogies between the assumptions about theatricality found in the classic Sanskrit treatise on acting, the Natyasastra, and those of the Elizabethan theatre, John Russell Brown suggests that the concept of rasa as the determining emotion of a performance is similar to that of the Elizabethan ‘humour’, or prevailing passion, as defined by Ben Jonson. Here he describes his work exploring what happens when actors draw on their own life experiences to imagine and assume the basic rasa of the character they are going to present, based on experiments in London with New Fortune Theatre; in Bremen with actors of the Bremer Shakespeare Company; and in New Delhi with actors of the National School of Drama. Using actors both young and experienced, familiar and unfamiliar with ensemble playing, and well or poorly acquainted with the concepts involved, he suggests that the results merit further exploration of a technique which could empower actors to bring Shakespeare's plays to new kinds of life. John Russell Brown founded the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham University, and for fifteen years was an Associate Director of the Royal National Theatre. His New Sites for Shakespeare: Theatre, the Audience, and Asia was published by Routledge in 1999, and his Shakespeare Dancing: a Theatrical Study of the Plays by Palgrave Macmillan in 2004. He edited and contributed to The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre (1995), and for Routledge has been General Editor of the ‘Theatre Production Studies’, ‘Theatre Concepts’, and forthcoming ‘Theatres of the World’ series.

Tomorrow's Theatre – and How to Get There from Today's

2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 334-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Brown
Keyword(s):  
Theatre Arts ◽  
Production Studies ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Inaugural Lecture ◽  
General Editor ◽  
Theatre Production ◽  
History Of ◽  
Associate Director

Taking a wide-ranging look at the aesthetics and economics of theatre on both sides of the Atlantic, and highlighting the increasing interest in learning about theatre in the educational sphere at a time when institutional theatre appears to be floundering, John Russell Brown here draws on his own visits over the past decade to traditional and contemporary theatres in China, India, Japan, Korea, and Indonesia to suggest how new approaches to and locations for theatre might build on forms which continue to draw audiences worldwide. John Russell Brown founded the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham University, and for fifteen years was an Associate Director of the Royal National Theatre. His New Sites for Shakespeare: Theatre, the Audience, and Asia was published by Routledge in 1999. His articles on Asian theatres and their influence in Europe and America have appeared in recent years in New Theatre Quarterly and several Indian journals. He edited and contributed to The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre (1995) and has been General Editor of the ‘Theatre Production Studies’ and ‘Theatre Concepts’ series, both for Routledge. This article is based upon his inaugural lecture at Middlesex University, where he is currently Visiting Professor.

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