Theater as Problem

Bennett, Benjamin

doi:10.7591/9781501745454

Cited by 10 publications

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“…And some who think about works of dramatic literature still worry about the effects of the fact that most works in that literature were written to be performed. 13 But this is not Isherwood's complaint. So, what does he mean?…”

Section: B Constraints Derived From Origins In Written Textsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Epilogue

2007

The Art of Theater

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By way of drawing to a close, let us examine directly the fact that many people still think of theatrical performances as performances of something else, usually works of literary art. There is a good reason they think this, even though it is mistaken. It has to do with the nature of what has been the dominant tradition of theater in Western culture at least since the late 1700s.Let us begin this examination by reminding ourselves of some of the reasons adduced earlier in the book for why this belief is mistaken. Not everything we regard as a performance is intentional. Consider what you have in mind when you compliment your friend after watching her deftly wriggle out of a very public and socially awkward moment. "Good performance," you say, after the dust has settled. You feel no need to think there must be a something of which hers was a performance. For there is nothing that corresponds to that "of." The "ingredients model" of the text-performance relation in theater generalizes this idea to all theatrical performances.More specifi cally, adherents of the ingredients model hold these claims to be true.(1) Theatrical performances are not presentations of works of literature, nor are they "performance texts" arrived at by the transformation of a written text, nor are they the completion or execution of works that are initiated -in any substantive sense -in written texts of any kind. (2) Performance identity is established by reference to aspects of, or facts about, the performance itself and sometimes to aspects of and facts about other performances too.

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Section: B Constraints Derived From Origins In Written Textsmentioning

confidence: 98%