Varifocalism: a Perspective on the Discipline of Theatre Studies

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 268-273
Author(s):  
Graham Ley
Keyword(s):  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Emeritus Professor ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Present Discussion ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Peter Brook ◽  
Theatre Studies ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Comparative Theory ◽  
The University

What is the discipline in which ‘academic drama’ is engaged? Leaving aside debates about an emphasis on theatre or performance as the key term, who is included in the discipline, and how has it reshaped itself over the last decades? Is it right to say there have been major redefining changes, and if so, what are they? Graham Ley is Emeritus Professor of Drama and Theory at the University of Exeter. He has published widely on ancient Greek performance and comparative theory, and is currently preparing an essay on a theoretical history for Greek tragedy. He has previously published in New Theatre Quarterly on developments in Australian theatre (1986), the avant-garde (1991), Peter Brook (1993), Diderot (1995), Tara Arts (1997), and most recently diaspora theatre in the UK (2011). The present discussion is adapted from the conclusion to Ancient Greek and Contemporary Performance, a collection of essays to be published later in the year by the University of Exeter Press.

The Theatrical Memory of Space: from Piscator and Brecht to Belgrade

2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 358-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvija Jestrovic
Keyword(s):  
Postdoctoral Fellow ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Cultural Spaces ◽  
Theatre Studies ◽  
The University ◽  
The City

In this article, Silvija Jestrovic introduces the notion of spatial inter-performativity to discuss theatre's relationship to actual political and cultural spaces. Focusing on the Berlin of the 1920s in performances of Brecht and Piscator, then on a street procession of the Générik Vapeur troupe that took place in Belgrade in 1994, she examines how theatrical and political spaces refer to and transform one another. Silvija Jestrovic was a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at York University in Toronto, and has recently taken up an appointment in the School of Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick. She is currently working on a book-length project entitled Avant-Garde and the City.

Sacred ‘Idiocy’ the Avant-Garde as Alternative Establishment

1991 ◽  
Vol 7 (28) ◽  
pp. 348-352
Author(s):  
Graham Ley
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Corporate Finance ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Contemporary Theatre ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Alternative Theatre ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

Is there a postmodernist theatre – and if so, what was the modernist theatre? What qualifies as avant-garde – and for how long? And why does the ‘established’ alternative theatre lean so heavily on appropriation, whether of ancient myths or contemporary ideologies – such as postmodernism? Graham Ley uses analogies from dance and design to explore our perceptions of and attitudes towards those contemporary theatre practitioners who may once have broken boundaries, but now often head the queue for lavish corporate finance. Graham Ley has taught in universities in England, Australia, and New Zealand, and his Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theatre will shortly appear from the University of Chicago Press.

Greek Tragedy as a Window on the Dispossessed

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Wilmer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Professor Emeritus ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Trinity College Dublin ◽  
Political Controversy ◽  
Theatre Studies

In this article Steve Wilmer discusses adaptations of Greek tragedy that highlight the plight of the displaced and the dispossessed, including Janusz Glowacki's Antigone in New York, Marina Carr's Hecuba, and Elfriede Jelinek's Die Schutzbefohlenen, which is notably emblematic among appropriations of ancient Greek plays in referencing the problems facing refugees in Europe. He considers how this latter play has been directed in a variety of ways in Germany and Austria since 2013, and how in turn it has been reappropriated for new dramatic performances to further investigate the conditions of refugees. Some of these productions have caused political controversy and one of them has even been physically attacked by a right-wing group. Steve Wilmer is Professor Emeritus of Drama at Trinity College Dublin. He is the co-editor of ‘Theatre and Statelessness in Europe’ for Critical Stages (2016), Resisting Biopolitics: Philosophical, Political, and Performative Strategies (Routledge, 2016), and Deleuze and Beckett (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). He also edited a special issue of Nordic Theatre Studies in 2015 titled ‘Theatre and the Nomadic Subject’.

Ibsen Our Contemporary

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-248
Author(s):  
Richard Hornby
Keyword(s):  
Social Problem ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Keynote Address ◽  
Emeritus Professor ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
The University ◽  
The Grotesque

In this article Richard Hornby argues that Ibsen's plays are badly performed today, or not performed at all, because of directors' refusal to take them with appropriate seriousness. The tendency is to stage the plays' reputation as simplistic social problem plays rather than as the complex, challenging, bizarre dramas that Ibsen actually wrote. In particular, directors avoid the grotesque elements that are the true ‘quintessence of Ibsenism’, and that are often remarkably similar in style to that of avant-garde playwrights today. Richard Hornby is Emeritus Professor of Theatre at the University of California, Riverside. For the past twenty-eight years he has been theatre critic for The Hudson Review, and is author of six books and over two hundred published articles on various aspects of theatre. This essay was delivered as the keynote address at the fourteenth annual Ibsen Festival of the Commonweal Theatre Company, Lanesboro, Minnesota, in April 2011.

Performing Ancient Greek Tragedy in Twentieth-Century Greece: Dimitris Rontiris and Karolos Koun

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Antoniou
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Theatre Studies ◽  
Emotional Approach

In this article Michaela Antoniou gives an account of the two prevailing acting schools in ancient Greek tragedy in the twentieth century, as formed and developed by Dimitris Rontiris at the National Theatre and Karolos Koun at the Theatro Technis (Art Theatre). She discusses how these two great theatre masters directed, guided, and taught their actors to perform tragedy, arguing that Rontiris's approach stemmed from a text-based perspective that focused on reciting and pronunciation, while Koun's developed from a physical and emotional approach that prioritzed actors and their abilities. Her article summarizes each director's philosophy regarding the Greek tragedies, and discusses the position of the genre within modern Greek theatre, mapping the process employed by the actors, and analyzing their method in order to illustrate the different perspectives that the two great directors had with regards to approaching and performing a role. Michaela Antoniou completed her PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is currently working as an external collaborator of the Department of Theatre Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She has also worked on the stage as an actress and playwright, and is a published author.

Should the RCN re-join the International Council of Nurses?

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (20) ◽  
pp. 1218-1219
Author(s):  
Alan Glasper
Keyword(s):  
Royal College ◽  
Emeritus Professor ◽  
International Council ◽  
College Of Nursing ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University

Emeritus Professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton, discusses a new consultation by the Royal College of Nursing on whether the UK should re-join the International Council of Nurses

Independent review seeks to tackle obesity and other diet-related diseases

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (17) ◽  
pp. 1040-1041
Author(s):  
Alan Glasper
Keyword(s):  
Food System ◽  
Emeritus Professor ◽  
Independent Review ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University ◽  
Recent Government

Emeritus Professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton, discusses a recent government-commissioned review on the food system of the UK

Ancient Greek Tragedy as Performance: the Literature–Performance Problematic

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-32
Author(s):  
Mario Frendo
Keyword(s):  
Performing Arts ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Performance Criticism ◽  
Theatre Studies ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
A Performance

In this article Mario Frendo engages with the idea of ancient Greek tragedy as a performance phenomenon, questioning critiques that approach it exclusively via literary–dramatic methodologies. Based on the premise that ancient Greek tragedy developed within the predominantly oral context of fifth-century BCE Greece, he draws on Hans-Thies Lehmann's study of tragedy and its relation to dramatic theatre, where it is argued that the genre is essentially ‘predramatic’. Considered as such, ancient Greek tragedy cannot be fully investigated using dramatic theories developed since early modernity. In view of this, Walter J. Ong's caution with respect to the rational processes produced by generations of literate culture will be acknowledged and alternative critiques sought, including performance criticism and performance-oriented frameworks such as orality, via which Frendo traces possible critical trajectories that would allow contemporary scholarship to deal with ancient tragedy as a performance rather than literary phenomenon. Reference will be made to Aristotle's use of the term ‘poetry’, and how performance criticism may provide new insight into how the Poetics deals with one of the earliest performance phenomena in the West. Mario Frendo is lecturer of theatre and performance and Head of the Department of Theatre Studies at the School of Performing Arts, University of Malta, where he is director of CaP, a research group focusing on links between culture and performance. His research interests include musicality in theatre, ancient tragedy, and relations between philosophical thought and performance.

The Pagan-Christian Admixture in Romeo Castellucci's Oedipus the Tyrant

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-112
Author(s):  
Keld Hyldig
Keyword(s):  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Associate Professor ◽  
Tear Gas ◽  
Theatre Studies ◽  
The University ◽  
Film Projection

In 2015, the Italian director Romeo Castellucci presented Oedipus the Tyrant at the Schaubühne in Berlin. His staging was based on the German poet-philosopher Friedrich Hölderlin's translation of 1804, which is known for its peculiar linguistic, philosophical, and theatrical approaches to Greek tragedy. In this article Keld Hyldig examines how Castellucci, in a response to Hölderlin's translation and commentaries on the tragedy, staged Oedipus as a theatrical and philosophical confrontation between religious and rational approaches to knowledge. The staging was seemingly simple, showing a group of nuns performing Oedipus in a monastery. However, the nuns’ Christian and feminine performance of the pagan and masculine tragedy was the basis of a metatheatrical complexity, which was reinforced through a film projection showing Romeo Castellucci getting tear gas sprayed in his eyes, making the relation between physical reality and fictional representation problematic. Keld Hyldig is an Associate Professor in Theatre Studies at the University of Bergen. He has published several articles about the Ibsen tradition in Norwegian theatre and is currently working on a monograph on that subject.

The Rhetoric of Theory: the Role of Metaphor in Brook's ‘The Empty Space’

1993 ◽  
Vol 9 (35) ◽  
pp. 246-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Ley
Keyword(s):  
New South ◽  
Empty Space ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Post War ◽  
The University

In his discussion-piece for NTQ 28 (1991), Graham Ley raised questions about the self-determination of the avant-garde, drawing on analogies from dance and design to explore the problem of the post-modern in the theatre. He also outlined a critique of what he called an ‘alternative establishment in theatrical endeavour’: here, he extends that critique into an analysis of the techniques of persuasion to be found in one of the most influential texts in post-war theatrical theory, Peter Brook's The Empty Space, arguing for an enhanced attention to be given to the language and textuality of theory. Graham Ley is a writer and researcher who has taught in the Universities of London and Auckland. As Australian Studies Fellow in Theatre at the University of New South Wales in 1984, he compiled jointly with Peter Fitzpatrick of Monash University the survey of new developments in Australian theatre published in NTQ5 (1986). Among his numerous publications on ancient performance, A Short Introduction to the Ancient Greek Theater appeared from the University of Chicago Press in 1991. He is currently working on a book on theatrical theory.

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