Romeo Castellucci – an apologist for postdramatic theater

The purpose of the article. To analyze the early performances directed by R. Castellucci, to explore the main features of his directing method, and on the basis of the analysis to identify the characteristics of post-dramatic theater in his work. The methodology applies a textual method for the elaboration of the conceptual apparatus of post-dramatic theater. The apply a hermeneutic method and the method of stylistic analysis allow to study the performances that represent the main artistic trends in the directing of R. Castellucci of the late ХХ century. The scientific novelty lies in understanding the creative pursuits of R. Castellucci, in the aesthetics of post-dramatic theater. For the first time, his performances are analyzed and their affiliation to the post-dramatic theater is classified based on the conceptual and categorical apparatus formed by scientists. Conclusions. R. Castellucci's early directorial works are characterized by performativity, imagery, visuality, distancing from text-centrism, which dominates in dramatic theater and rethinking the meaning of the word as a vestige of dramatic performance. These features of the director's method give the right to define him as an exponent of ideas of post-dramatic theater. Keywords: Romeo Castellucci, post-dramatic theater, performance, visuality.

Theater Reform and the Masque in Marvell's Upon Appleton House

The signature scene shifts, pastoral settings, and perspectival instabilities of Andrew Marvell’s Upon Appleton House squarely align the poem with the theatrical tradition of the court masque, a tradition that was effectively moribund at the at the time of the poem’s composition in 1651.  The influence of the masque on Upon Appleton House (and other Marvell works) has been widely noted, but the significance of his poem in the longer history of English theater––specifically, in the discourse of theatrical reform––has not been fully considered.  In Upon Appleton House, Marvell not only applies the strategies and techniques of the masque, but he also engages with ideas central to the ongoing debate between opponents and defenders of the stage.  As such, his poem anticipates the reforms and innovations attempted by William Davenant, Richard Flecknoe, and others who campaigned to revive theater in Interregnum England.  However, Marvell’s appropriation of masque theatrics is not tethered to the goals of reform.  His poem is distinctly the product of the post-regicide, pre-Protectorate imagination, when the theaters are shuttered, dramatic performance is driven underground, and the fate of the commonwealth is precarious.  Accordingly, his method is not to establish a mode of theater palatable to republican interests, but instead to defamiliarize theatrical representation in a way that responds to the uncertainty of the moment.

Melusine as Emblem of Truth: Philosophical tentacles, themes and approaches explored in the audiovisual essay The Mystery of Melusine

This article introduces the philosophical underpinnings, themes and approaches explored in the audiovisual essay The Mystery of Melusine (2021). Its footage consists of a dramatic performance in which I am enacting the contents of a philosophical poem authored by myself as the titular character. The narrative of the film essay explores the nature of truth and espouses an ontology of magic through a re-interpretation of the myth of Melusine. In European folklore, Melusine is the reclusive and mysterious wife who agrees to marry upon the condition that she is granted her privacy every Saturday. On Saturdays, she spends her solitude secretly bathing her fish tail until one day her husband peeps through the keyhole of her bathing chamber. She learns he has broken his promise to not impede her privacy, and so she evanesces. In my film essay, Melusine is a metaphor for the secretiveness and elusiveness of truth, and the way life unfurls itself in secretive and clandestine ways. The notion of truth as elusive and secretive derives its inspiration from the philosopher Martin Heidegger, and this film essay can be considered a mythic interpretation of some of his ideas. In addition to a mythic interpretation of truth, the film essay provides a narrative for the way life meets itself through otherness and recounts the journey of personal transformation in which the querent must reconcile to truth; this is elaborated as a process of self-seeing and self-recognition that takes place through the alien other.

“SUICIDE” ON THE KHARKIV STAGE: MUSIC AND STAGE READING BY S. PASICHNYK – H. FROLOV

Statement of the problem. The article examines the theatrical heritage of Les Kurbas, the founder of Shevchenko Kharkiv Academic Ukrainian Drama Theatre (originally called «Berezil»). Les Kurbas is the reformer of the Ukrainian theater; his theatrical ideas demonstrate a new understanding of the synthesis of the arts. He concentrated his creative aspirations not only on acting, but also on all components of the performance, in particular on music. The paper examines methodically the application of the basic principles of Les Kurbas Theatre – the co-authorship of the director and composer – in Kharkiv theatre. The article also studies the works by H. Frolov – talented Kharkiv composer. The critical legacy dedicated to the works of Les Kurbas does not fully illuminate the uniqueness of his views regarding directing and the originality of the musical language in the genre of dramatic performance (CherkashynaHubarenko, 2002; Hordieiev, 2003; Yermakova, 2012; Labinska, 2012). There are a number of works devoted to the issues of music in theater (Kurysheva, 1984; Kozyurenko, 1986; Tarshis, 2010; Matsepura, 2013; Lesakova, 2017; Oseeva, 2019; Kovalchuk, 2017; Nurtazin, 2013; Spagnolo, 2017). The novelty of our research. The paper investigates musical component in the current practice of Shevchenko Kharkiv Academic Ukrainian Drama Theatre and creative method of its leading composer H. Frolov. The aim of the article is to reveal the interconnection of music with the stage elements of the performance. The study of the stage play “Suicide” in Kharkiv Drama Theater required the implementation a number of scientific approaches: historical and genetic, studying the modern function of music in the analyzed dramatic performance in Kharkiv Drama Theater, the origins of which go back to Kurbas “Berezil”; a comparative analysis, revealing the ways of preserving old traditions in modern performance; genre analysis, investigating the embodiment of the comedy dell arte in the musical scenes; stylistic analysis, revealing the composer’s thinking in making the director’s decision regarding stagecraft. The presentation of the main material. The article analyzes a musical component in the stage performance “Suicide” based on the play by Nikolay Erdman (1928), reinterpreted by our contemporaries – the stage director Stepan Pasichnyk and the composer Henadii Frolov. The work reviews the production itself and the acting troupe. The article outlines the inheritance and development of the traditions in Les Kurbas Theatre regarding the mutual work of the composer and director, aimed at the organic fusion of the stage action and musical accompaniment of the performance. Conclusions. Dramaturgical and genre-compositional analyzes of the performance detected such distinctive features of the individual style of H. Frolov as: musical organization of the stage with one intonation, which, depending on the drama, can be flexible and transformative, acquiring new meanings and qualities and thus making the musical development monothematic; unity of the figurative and semantic layers of music with the director’s concept of the performance; transformation of genre features of tragic farce and commedia dell’arte.

An Age of Transition: Restaging Brecht’s Encounter with Beijing Opera

The scene is Moscow, 1935. A who’s who of the European avant-garde has gathered to see the work of their foremost Chinese colleague: the Beijing opera master Mei Lanfang. Among them is the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who sees in Mei’s performances the aesthetic effect he aims to develop in his own work: an effect he will soon call the ‘alienation effect.’ In 1936, Brecht pens his famous essay “On Chinese Acting,” in which he argues—approvingly—that Chinese theatre alienates the actor and audience from a play’s narrative by smashing the fourth wall and championing symbolism over realism. But did Brecht get it right? In this essay, I examine this remarkable episode in global theatre history. I argue that Brecht misunderstood Beijing opera’s theatre aesthetics, yet nonetheless meaningfully engaged with Chinese culture. A renewed encounter between Brechtian theatre and Beijing opera, I suggest, opens up intriguing possibilities in dramatic performance and theatre aesthetics.

Practice of Dramatic Performance in Barka Dance

Barka dance is one of the greatest dramatic performances of Tharu Culture. This traditional Tharu dance is performed to keep locals safe from danger and diseases. Barka, which literally translates to ‘big’ in the Tharu language is based on the tales of the Mahabharata and TharuLokMahabharat, Barkimar. The dance, which is carried out from the day of Krishna Janmasthami to Tihar is performed after a long cultural and religious procedure. Condensed versions of this dance are frequently performed during different festivals and fairs. The complete dance requires worshipping different gods and goddesses. They need more than 3o artists to perform the Barka dance. Every character performs a different role according to the story of Mahabharata. They tell the whole story through songs and performance of the characters. It is very important to perform drama in Barka dance for the Tharu community. They learn the message of the story easily watching the performance rather than telling the story. So it is a very traditional practice in the Tharu community. This dance is at risk of extinction because of its time, cost and lack of artists.

To Catch a Joke Thief, or Copyrighting Vaudeville Acts in the New York Clipper Registry

In the early part of the twentieth century, the trade publication the New York Clipper created a way for vaudeville artists to claim priority over acts, songs, plays, jokes, and even concepts. The initiative tells us a great deal about the limited legal options facing vaudevillians at the time period as well as the dubious nature of codifying non-dramatic performance acts as clearly defined, own-able, and protectable intellectual property. Drawing on newspaper clippings from Billboard, Variety, and the New York Clipper, as well as rare documents from the American Comedy Archives, this paper offers a look at the American press’s attempt to intervene. It also provides an exploration of a number of rare jokes, gags, novelty acts over which vaudevillians claimed exclusive rights. Ultimately, if the newspapers could not actually protect the performers, they did manage to preserve acts that would otherwise be lost in history.

Pekatik in gambuh dramatic show

A dramatic performance that presents a play will be found by several figures according to their social status, which is a reflection of people’s lives that are staged on the stage. Gambuh, for example, as the mother of the Balinese drama that appeared afterward and has developed from the Ancient Bali era, Classical Bali to the present, there are at least several strata of characters that appear, one of which is the Pekatik actor. This servant character only appears according to the needs of the storyline being presented, has the character of being innocent, funny, and antawacana using Balinese. Now, in some Gambuh performances, the Pekatik character is very rare because after the 1990s this role was replaced by the Semar character. This study is very important as a source of written data that will be used as reference material for future researchers. This research uses qualitative methods, as well as data collection using literature review techniques, documentation, and interviews.

PROBLEMATIZING PREVALENCE OF RASAIN THE PLAYS OF MAHESH DATTANI

Natyashastriya theory of Rasa is a spirit so abstract that can only be suggested, not described in any work of visual, literary or performing art. Rasabhasa, a concept from Bharata Muni’s Rasa theory, alternatively nomenclated as a semblance of Rasa interestingly appearsparallel to Rasa but is not Rasa. Bharatmuni reiterates the relishing of Rasa or Rasabhasa from a conditional amalgamation of Bhava (emotions), Alambana Vibhava (protagonist), Uddipan Vibhava (environment) and Vyabhicharibhava (transitory emotional feelings) in the protagonist i.e. the one who leads (NayatiItiNeta). The conditionality isfurther enunciated emphasizing that not all protagonists relish Rasa or Rasabhasa distinctively in a dramatic performance. Modern plays with their stark distinctions from the ancient Indian plays like Abhigyanshakuntalam portray multilayered characters dealing with the questions of identities in various spatialities and temporalities at a glance do not seem insinuated with the characteristics underpinned in Natyashastra. These distinctions and coming away from the thematic contextualization of ancient Indian plays enshrouds the idea of Rasa Relish. Dattani’s On a Muggy Night in Mumbai and Seven Steps around the Fire explicitly raise gender and identity issues of LGBT community, in dealing with their thematic structure and characterization reveal relishing of Rasa or Rasabhasa. The paper critically problematizes the translational affinities between Rasa and Rasabhasa, also aspires to explore two plays by drawing on the concept of Rasabhasa. (Re) interpreting Rasa and Rasabhasa in the context of modern LGBT plays is the central premise of this research paper.