When Euripides wrote his final play, Iphigenia at Aulis, depicting the human sacrifice of Agamemnon’s first child that allowed the sailing of the Greek expedition against Troy, he was faced with several significant mythographic choices. Of primary concern was the outcome of the sacrifice: there existed a strong tradition in early sources that mitigated the sacrifice by affecting a divine rescue by Artemis, usually with a deer being left in her place on the altar. The extremely troubled textual history of our script – the play was first performed posthumously, and we do not know in what state Euripides left the text – means that we cannot be certain which tradition Euripides actually chose to follow, sacrifice or rescue. Depicting Iphigenia as a willing victim, however, must have been Euripides’ own innovation. This dissertation explores the ramifications of that self-sacrifice and contextualizes this play within a tradition of mythographic evolution and reception. Chapter 1 surveys the history of criticism of the text, itself a mode of reception, and also examines trends in Euripidean criticism in the modern period, limited until recently by the textual issues. Chapter 2 considers instances of the Iphigenia legend before Euripides’ play. The parodos of Agamemnon, the first source to express the sacrifice in terms of human suffering, receives special attention. Chapter 3 seeks to understand audience reception at the moment of first performance through three different critical lenses: thematic (self-sacrifice was a recurring motif in Euripides’ work), socio-political (by considering the recurring Panhellenic sentiment deployed in the play’s rhetoric), and dramaturgical (by treating the spatial dynamics of the performance as a point of intertextual contact). Chapters 4 and 5 examine reception of the sacrifice story in antiquity (in the Hellenistic and Roman periods), a process which reveals much about the position of Greek tragedy in the popular imagination following the fifth century. The final chapter brings to bear considerations of adaptations of the play into new genres and new media since the advent of the printing press, all of which open up new possibilities for the creators of these adaptations and the story they wish to tell.

Over the past decade, there has been a turn in applied health research towards the use of performance as a tool for knowledge translation. The turn to performance in applied health sciences has emerged as researchers have struggled to find new and engaging ways to communicate complex research findings regarding the human condition. However, the turn to performance has occurred within the political landscape of the knowledge economy, and thus conforms to contemporary practices of knowledge production and evaluation. Recent studies about health-based performances exhibit two hallmarks of economized modes of knowledge production. First, these studies focus their attention on the transmission of knowledge to health care professionals through an exposure to performance. Knowledgeable, and thus more useful or efficient, health care providers are the end-product of this transaction. Second, many of these productions are created in the context of application, and thus are driven by an accountability and goals-oriented approach to knowledge acquisition. This thesis argues that economized and rationalized modes of knowledge production do great harm to performance’s pedagogical and ethical potential. By utilizing scientific evaluative methodologies to monitor performance’s ‘success’ as an evaluable, predictable and ends-oriented practice obscures performance’s libratory value, and thus misses performance’s potentially most potent and critical contributions. To mount this argument, I present a case study of Margaret Edson’s play Wit, which has been used widely in medical education. Drawing from the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, I critically explore the impact of the knowledge economy on arts-based pedagogical models within health research and education. Further, I seek to redress potential harms inflicted by the knowledge economy by developing the notion of ethical “response-ability.” Through this concept I argue that performance challenges normative conceptions of reason, rationality and scientific evaluation, making the use of theatre in contemporary educational settings at once troublesome and vital.

When Euripides wrote his final play, Iphigenia at Aulis, depicting the human sacrifice of Agamemnon’s first child that allowed the sailing of the Greek expedition against Troy, he was faced with several significant mythographic choices. Of primary concern was the outcome of the sacrifice: there existed a strong tradition in early sources that mitigated the sacrifice by affecting a divine rescue by Artemis, usually with a deer being left in her place on the altar. The extremely troubled textual history of our script – the play was first performed posthumously, and we do not know in what state Euripides left the text – means that we cannot be certain which tradition Euripides actually chose to follow, sacrifice or rescue. Depicting Iphigenia as a willing victim, however, must have been Euripides’ own innovation. This dissertation explores the ramifications of that self-sacrifice and contextualizes this play within a tradition of mythographic evolution and reception. Chapter 1 surveys the history of criticism of the text, itself a mode of reception, and also examines trends in Euripidean criticism in the modern period, limited until recently by the textual issues. Chapter 2 considers instances of the Iphigenia legend before Euripides’ play. The parodos of Agamemnon, the first source to express the sacrifice in terms of human suffering, receives special attention. Chapter 3 seeks to understand audience reception at the moment of first performance through three different critical lenses: thematic (self-sacrifice was a recurring motif in Euripides’ work), socio-political (by considering the recurring Panhellenic sentiment deployed in the play’s rhetoric), and dramaturgical (by treating the spatial dynamics of the performance as a point of intertextual contact). Chapters 4 and 5 examine reception of the sacrifice story in antiquity (in the Hellenistic and Roman periods), a process which reveals much about the position of Greek tragedy in the popular imagination following the fifth century. The final chapter brings to bear considerations of adaptations of the play into new genres and new media since the advent of the printing press, all of which open up new possibilities for the creators of these adaptations and the story they wish to tell.

This dissertation formulates a poetics of performance in nonfiction film and television. Building on a large body of converging research that calls for an acknowledgment of: the constructedness of documentary texts; the performative nature of identity; and the significance of screen performance, I illustrate the way in which documentary subjects must finally be seen as creative agents who (consciously or not) play a significant role in determining the meanings, functions, and effects of the films in which they appear. A first chapter lays the groundwork for this discussion, setting out a means of understanding and investigating the documentary performer’s work. It is argued that nonfiction performance is a three-tiered process, wherein everyday performative activity (tier #1) is shaped by and often tailored to the camera (tier #2) within specific nonfiction film frameworks (tier #3). In addition to providing a flexible and generally applicable model of what the nonfiction subject’s work entails, this conceptualization suggests an appropriate means of analysing individual documentary performances, indicating the necessity of attending to the way in which twice modified everyday self-presentational tools serve as signifiers in any given nonfiction text. Subsequent chapters turn from the issue of what nonfiction performance involves to a consideration of what it accomplishes. Drawing from scholarship devoted to each of the three levels of the documentary ‘social actor’s’ work, I posit three major functions for nonfiction performance. Chapter 2 demonstrates the way in which the individuals who appear in documentaries play a significant role in the construction of ‘characters’, which, in turn, exert an indelible influence on the meaning(s) of the texts in which they figure. Chapter 3 argues that nonfiction performance helps to bolster and/or to destabilize normative understandings of identity categories such as gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, race, class and dis/ability. Finally, the concluding chapter discusses the way in which documentary performers help to invite affective reactions from spectators, and – in so doing – contribute significantly to nonfiction texts’ ability to effectuate social change. Detailed analyses of a wide range of documentaries provide support for these contentions.

This dissertation formulates a poetics of performance in nonfiction film and television. Building on a large body of converging research that calls for an acknowledgment of: the constructedness of documentary texts; the performative nature of identity; and the significance of screen performance, I illustrate the way in which documentary subjects must finally be seen as creative agents who (consciously or not) play a significant role in determining the meanings, functions, and effects of the films in which they appear. A first chapter lays the groundwork for this discussion, setting out a means of understanding and investigating the documentary performer’s work. It is argued that nonfiction performance is a three-tiered process, wherein everyday performative activity (tier #1) is shaped by and often tailored to the camera (tier #2) within specific nonfiction film frameworks (tier #3). In addition to providing a flexible and generally applicable model of what the nonfiction subject’s work entails, this conceptualization suggests an appropriate means of analysing individual documentary performances, indicating the necessity of attending to the way in which twice modified everyday self-presentational tools serve as signifiers in any given nonfiction text. Subsequent chapters turn from the issue of what nonfiction performance involves to a consideration of what it accomplishes. Drawing from scholarship devoted to each of the three levels of the documentary ‘social actor’s’ work, I posit three major functions for nonfiction performance. Chapter 2 demonstrates the way in which the individuals who appear in documentaries play a significant role in the construction of ‘characters’, which, in turn, exert an indelible influence on the meaning(s) of the texts in which they figure. Chapter 3 argues that nonfiction performance helps to bolster and/or to destabilize normative understandings of identity categories such as gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, race, class and dis/ability. Finally, the concluding chapter discusses the way in which documentary performers help to invite affective reactions from spectators, and – in so doing – contribute significantly to nonfiction texts’ ability to effectuate social change. Detailed analyses of a wide range of documentaries provide support for these contentions.

Regardless of genre, Shakespeare’s plays open in many different ways on the stage. Some openings come in the form of a prologue and extend from it; others in the form of a framing dialogue; some may begin in medias res; and there is also a single case of an induction in The Taming of the Shrew. My dissertation, “Shakespeare’s Openings in Action: A Study of Four Plays from the Period 1591- c.1602,” subsequently referred to as “Shakespeare’s Openings in Action,” attempts to define the construction of openings in the context of Shakespeare’s dramaturgy and to understand texts which were written in the first place to be performed on a platform stage by actors experienced in theatrical practice. By analysing the playwright’s organization of the dramatic material, as reflected in the play-texts, I attempt to gauge how an opening set out to engage original audiences in the play, an essential function of theatrical composition, and to determine to what extent the play-text may be considered as an extended stage direction for early modern actors.1 What is the present state of scholarship in the subject? Although sparse, critical interest in the openings of Shakespeare’s plays can be found as early as 1935 in the work of A. C. Sprague, Shakespeare and the Audience. In more recent years, other studies have appeared, for instance, Robert F. Willson, Jr., Shakespeare’s Opening Scenes (1977), and a number of articles included in Entering the Maze: Shakespeare’s Art of Beginning, edited by F. Willson Jr. (1995). Existing scholarship provides a good general framework for further research into the openings of Shakespeare’s plays. In addition to the studies presented above, I shall draw on analytical approaches to play-text analysis which involve theatre practice, for example in the work of André Helbo, Approaching Theatre (1991), Anne Ubersfeld, Reading Theatre (1996), and John Russell Brown, Shakespeare’s Plays in Performance (1993); John Barton, Playing Shakespeare (1984), and Cicely Berry, Text in Action. London (2001). These works provide revealing insights into the theatrical possibilities of dramatic language and actor technique. 1The analytical method presented in this dissertation supplements studies made of the complex textual histories of Shakespeare’s plays by considering the staging and characterisation information they contain. In the case of multiple-text plays, it takes account of editorial scholarship and explains the reasons for choosing to analyse the material contained in one version over the other(s).

In this dissertation I investigate the stylistic shift in the cinema of selected filmmakers whose work is rooted in Bertolt Brecht’s dramatic theory: Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, Peter Watkins, and Lars von Trier. Through the work of these filmmakers, I trace the ongoing change in the cinematic applications of the theory. By and large, the change consists of a lessening of the role of montage – a technique that occupies a paramount place in Brecht’s theatrical and filmic practice – in favour of the objects within the camera’s field of view and the sounds within the microphone’s range. Since the ultimate effect for which the Brechtian filmmaker aims is that of Verfremdung, theatrical stylisation – itself estranging within the context of cinema – appears as a natural corollary of the described shift in emphasis. I also suggest a causal connection between the aforementioned shift and the growing self-consciousness of the style employed by meainstream cinemas (of which Hollywood is the foremost representative), which often manifests itself in the use of unorthodox editing patterns. Accordingly, I propose that we can attribute the contemporary Brechtian filmmaker’s growing reliance on mise-en-scène elements as a source of Verfremdung largely to the major film industries’ adoption of montage and other specifically cinematic codes that make a film’s style overt. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the Brechtian filmmaker – whose political stance is inherently antagonistic to that exemplified by most mainstream cinema, reacts to the normalisation of foregrounded film style by employing the opposite strategy.

This thesis explores the role of drama in creating transformative schooling practices with at-risk youth. Specifically, through an auto-ethnographic study of my own experiences in the dramatic arts as a student and teacher, I analyze the potential of drama education to disrupt hegemonic performances of gender and sexuality in the classroom. By using feminist and queer theories, I analyze my experiences and then share key insights through narrative writing. My narrative, analysis and findings are organized into three thematic lenses: body as a site of knowing, drama space as a queer space, and drama as a method for creating change. This thesis also offers specific pedagogical, curricular and relational strategies for developing a transformative schooling practice. Finally, the study examines the role of teacher positionality in creating a transformative practice, and the potential of using a queer pedagogy.

An Ear for an Eye: Greek Tragedy on Radio examines the dramaturgical principles involved in the adaptation of Greek tragedies for production as radio dramas by considering the classical dramatic form’s representational ability through purely oral means and the effects of dramaturgical interventions. The inherent orality of these tragedies and Aristotle’s suggested limitation of spectacle (opsis) appears to make them eminently suitable for radio, a medium in which the visual dimension of plays is relegated entirely to the imagination through the agency of sound. Utilizing productions from Canadian and British national radio (where classical adaptations are both culturally mandated and technically practical) from the height of radio’s golden age to the present, this study demonstrates how producers adapted to the unique formal properties of radio. The appendices include annotated, chronological lists of 154 CBC and BBC productions that were identified in the course of research, providing a significant resource for future investigators. The dissertation first examines the proximate forces which shaped radio dramaturgy and radio listeners. Situating the emergence of radio in the context of modernity, Chapter One elucidates how audiences responded to radio’s return to orality within a visually-oriented culture. Chapter Two then analyses the specific perceptual and imaginative activity of individuals, considering how audiences experience acoustic space. I describe how the audience’s central position in the reception of radio drama is integral to the completion of the dramatic frame of radio. The second part of this dissertation addresses radiophonic dramaturgy and issues in representation. In Chapter Three, the didactic and nationalistic impetus for the adaptation of classics as radio plays is considered and the principles of radio adaptation are outlined. The final two chapters examine the formal properties of productions in adaptation through case studies to illustrate where the play’s inherent orality allows for ease in adaptation or where greater dramaturgical intervention is required. Chapter Four examines the construction of dramatic figures, music and song, the use of paratheatrical materials, and narrative strategies for the representation of action, space, and time. Chapter Five examines productions where greater dramaturgical intervention and innovation is in evidence, including the manipulation of perspective (in the CBC’s 2001 Medea), the use of music to modernize setting (in the 1998 CBC-BBC co-production of The Trojan Women), the use of experimental montage (in the BBC’s 1976 Ag), the introduction of flashback sequences (in the CBC’s 1987 Antigone), and solutions to the problem of what I term “dramaturgical erasure” (the inadvertent removal of silent figures from the perspectival field).

This dissertation develops a theory for analyzing the role of audiences as aesthetic resources in contemporary site-specific performance and relational art. Collaborating with three Canadian companies as a participant-observer, interviewer, and in some cases, documenter, I develop case studies that track flexible stage-audience relationships in public spaces. By analyzing how companies Radix Theatre Society, Bluemouth, and Mammalian Diving Reflex put spectators to work in sites like IKEA showrooms, disused warehouses, and theatres, I advance a method that attends to the doubled practice of the spectator as worker and witness. This framework, which I term bifold spectatorship, articulates how audiences constitute theatrical worlds through direct physical engagement with the cultural criticism and formal experimentation that artists stage. Folded into the event, spectators literally compose the scene of the action, and enter into what I call critical proximity with the discourses that shape the performance. As participants interact with and directly query the artistic expressions that they patron, they answer a challenge to perform that is typically reserved for professionals. Such novel participation begins with a hail that interpellates audiences into the action as subjects and even sites of performance. Adapting the concept of the casting call, or what I coin site-casting, miscasting, and central casting, I show how spectators are aligned with the exigencies of the site; “mis-placed” or miscast by artists (provoking performance anxiety in participants); or cast to play a role they already perform in their everyday lives. In addition to these critical frameworks, I challenge the established narrative of “liberating the audience” by forwarding a multi-sited genealogy of site-specific performance that confronts the romance of freeing spectators from stage conventions. In examining the ethical problems that arise when audiences are made responsible for representation, The Stagehands of Subversive Spaces extends debates within site-specific performance to wider conversations in performance studies about ethics, subjectivity, and audience reception.