The thesis investigates and develops a compositional system on intermediality in theatre and performance as a dramaturgical practice through integrative design. The position of the visual/sonic media in theatre and performance has been altered by the digitalisation and networking of media technologies, which enables enhanced dynamic variables in the intermedial processes. The emergent intermediality sites are made accessible by developments in media technologies and form part of broader changes towards a mediatised society: a simultaneous shift in cultural contexts, theatre practice and audience perception. The practice-led research is situated within a postdramatic context and develops a system of compositional perspectives and procedures to enhance the knowledge of a dramaturgy on intermediality. The intermediality forms seem to re-situate the actual/virtual relations in theatre and re-construct the processes of theatricalisation in the composition of the stage narrative. The integration of media and performers produces a compositional environment of semiosis, where the theatre becomes a site of narration, and the designed integration in-between medialities emerges as intermediality sites in the performance event. A selection of performances and theatre directors is identified, who each in distinct ways integrate mediating technologies as a core element in their compositional design. These directors and performances constitute a source of reflection on compositional strategies from the perspective of practice, and enable comparative discussions on dramaturgical design and the consistency of intermediality sites. The practice-led research realised a series of prototyping processes situated in performance laboratories in 2004-5. The laboratories staged investigations into the relation between integrative design procedures and parameters for composition of intermediality sites, particularly the relative presence in-between the actual and the virtual, and the relative duration and distance in-between timeness and placeness. The integration of performer activities and media operations into dramaturgical structures were developed as a design process of identifying the mapping and experiencing the landscape through iterative prototyping. The developed compositional concepts and strategies were realised in the prototype performance Still I Know Who I Am, performed October 2006. This final research performance was a full-scale professional production, which explored the developed dramaturgical designs through creative practice. The performance was realised as a public event, and composed of a series of scenes, each presenting a specific composite of the developed integrative design strategies, and generating a particular intermediality site. The research processes in the performance laboratories and the prototype performance developed on characteristics, parameters and procedures of compositional strategies, investigating the viability of a dramaturgy of intermediality through integrative design. The practice undertaken constitutes raw material from which the concepts are drawn and underpins the premises for the theoretical reflections.

This thesis is divided into two sections. In the first section the Elizabethan Theatre is described and the idea that this structure shaped Shakespeare's plays is examined and emphasis is put on the fact that this was an aural theatre. After the spectacular and visual approach of the Victorian theatre, William Poel considered that the texts should again be paramount, while Harley Granville Barker, realizing that we are not Elizabethans, tried to find a compromise between the starkness of the Elizabethan theatre and the greater technical ability of the modern theatre. His one-set productions were to influence the rest of the century, though Tyrone Guthrie thought that Shakespeare should be taken away from the picture-frame stage and be restored to a thrust stage. With the creation of The Other Place at Stratford, and The Young Vic Theatre as part of the (then) National Theatre, small space productions became part of main stream theatre companies. This led to an exciting dimension in the presentation of Shakespeare texts where actors had to learn new techniques and which involved audiences to a greater extent than before and which, again, led to the aural taking place of the visual. The second section examines ten productions performed in a variety of small theatres and the plays chosen spread over the whole of the Shakespeare canon.

This thesis argues for the relevance of the history of Science, and its natural corollaries of music and space, in order to understand the chorus and its historical and cultural interconnections. The synchronous emergence of ancient natural philosophy, a new form of mousike and theatre space during the birth of the tragic chorus is more than coincidence. In seminal productions of Greek tragedy throughout European history the singing tragic chorus will be aligned with concurrent modulations in scientific principles and in aesthetics. My interdisciplinary approach recognizes an on-going interrelation between science and the arts based on shifting notions of the principles of order and disorder. Using a history of ideas framework, a scientific analogue describes the conceptual changes that emerge out of the tensions between tradition and innovation . The singing tragic chorus serves as a historical touchstone, each chapter focusing on an exemplary production in the performance history of Greek tragedy: Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus in c. 429 BCE Athens (ancient), Oedipus Rex in 1585 Vicenza (renaissance), Antigone in 1841 Potsdam (classical/romantic), and Oedipus Rex in 1927 Paris (modernist). The chronological arrangement is structured as a comparative reading and not as a continuous historical narrative or comprehensive survey. The interface of science with music and theatre will be discussed from two standpoints which I have defined as Chorality and Theatricality. In Chorality, I look at the relationship of text and music. In Theatricality, I discuss the interaction of the chorus with theatre space. Using the singing tragic chorus as a nexus for the interaction of science and art, I conclude that the dynamic coexistence of order and disorder, in both nature and the human condition, continually necessitates changes in the explanatory and descriptive language of both disciplines.

This thesis is motivated by the question of how and why actors perform and experience emotion, especially in cases when the emotional demands are as extreme and urgent as in Greek tragedy. In order to answer this question the thesis embarks on two main tasks: (a) to reappraise the position, function and technique of emotion in the work of four key practitioners of twentieth century Western acting (Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Brecht and Grotowski) from the point of view of contemporary neuroscience, and (b) to trace their original paradigm in the professional mourners' psychotechnique of emotion, as found in ancient and modern Greek ritual lamentation for the dead. The first part of the thesis attempts to reread and reframe twentieth century western acting's technique of emotion by adopting the radically new neuroscientific paradigm of emotion, which reappraises emotion as a catalytic faculty in the formation of motivation, decision-making, reasoning, action and social interaction. It appears that the general shift of emphasis of twentieth century acting theory from emotion to action, as epitomised in the Stanislavskian Method of Physical Actions, was in reality a shift from feeling to emotion. The second part of the thesis investigates how Greek professional mourners (aoidoi) manage to generate feelings in their audience, by simulating the symptoms of grief, while also motivated by a naturalistic stance towards the community, life and death. By juxtaposing neuroscientific, theatrical and anthropological data, the thesis concludes that both actors and lamenters function as psychagogoi and share a common basic emotional psychotechnique, which relies on building and delivering a score of emotional action that combines physiological knowledge with memory, imagination and real pain. The findings are tested for their efficiency and limitations through documentation of the rehearsal process of Euripides' Trojan Women.

This thesis reconsiders the relationship between the human subject and the physical object in performance practice, which has been commonly perceived within hierarchical systems of instrumentalisation. The thesis demonstrates that in processes of performance making and reception, the role of physical objects goes beyond mimesis and direct representation. Physical objects and materials have the capacity to take active parts in a complex and multilayered performance dynamic, articulating ways of seeing and offering new ways of assessing performance. Drawing on Hegel's conception, the notion of ‘objectification' is central to this dynamic, approached as a positive model of the subject's potential development and as a productive catalyst in a creative process, which goes against the negative connotations engrained in the term. The thesis is grounded on three case studies from recent live performances, following the journey of the object throughout different modalities of presentation: an opera production, where the object is key and a point of departure for the devising process; a performance installation, where the shifting boundary between performer and object is negotiated as a politically charged vehicle of expression; and a performance based on the act of ‘telling,' where the language itself approaches the status of object, materialising an experience from the past in a way that extends the notions of materiality and site-specificity beyond physical boundaries. In each of the cases, the interaction between the subject and the object is emphasised as dialectical and reciprocal, rather than hierarchical or subordinate. In different ways, each side takes part in constructing the other, while the authority of the written text as the bearer of meaning and as the starting point is destabilised. The practices highlight the creative, philosophical and political significance of the unstable dynamic between subjects and objects, offering conceptual lenses through which other examples of practice can be viewed. The case studies raise wider questions on the nature of the subject-object tension, and its capacity to situate and define our relationship to the self and to the world. By employing a multiplicity of analytical and philosophical frameworks in the humanities and social sciences, and by evaluating a larger body of theoretical and practical approaches to objects in modernist and contemporary paradigms, the thesis offers a detailed analysis of what occurs through a performance situation and how the object in each case study actively contributes to the making process in ways that employ, and also transgress, the object's material limitations. The author's position as a participant-observer, and at times a performer, allows for experiential understanding of the tension inherent in the subject-object dynamic and its practical implications. Recognising the nature of performance as fundamentally subversive of binary closure, the thesis concludes with proposing a conceptual framework that adds to the understanding of human experience and performance. It emphasises ‘ambiguity' as an unresolved state of existence intrinsic to the relationship between the subject and the object in both performance and the social world. The thesis proposes new approaches to performance making that invest in the object's potential as a mobilising element that embodies meanings, values and social relations.

This thesis argues that the impact of the ludic on performer training can be analysed by the application of play theory. Theories of play are apt for analysis of the emergence of ludic performance practices, in particular how the ludic functions as a basis for training for these. This thesis analyses the ludic practices in the postLecoquian performer training of Philippe Gaulier, John Wright and Jon Davison and focuses specifically on the workshop. Their respective techniques are infiltrating performer training in the UK and as a consequence the activities and languages of play are becoming accepted, yet there is little analysis or understanding of how these ludic practices function. The research questions for this thesis ask what is the ludic and what are its potential intersections with performance analysis? What is the interplay between ludus (structure) and the paidic (free)? And what is the relation between play and actuality? To respond to the first question I provide an overview of the scope of play theory in particular its relation to cultural theory, performance analysis and the paradigm of Performance Studies and I isolate a methodology based on Roger Caillois' play theory of ludus and paidia. This methodolqgy is formed in order to address the second thesis question and to explore how the ludic interplay between structure and freedom functions in performer training. I use Caillois' continuum of ludus/paidia to analyse the ludicity of Gaulier, Wright and Davison's respective techniques as manifested in the workshop format and I propose that the result of this analysis reveals a paidic aesthetic of training and performing. 'Acting to actuality' refers to the development of training from representative to presentative performance in which realism and modes of realistic performance are eschewed for the reality of the presence of the performer and the activities in which the performer is engaged. This thesis also explores the function of the ludic in this shift, particularly in relation to the emergence of clown performance and argues that a paidic aesthetic produces an actual, not an acted, performance.

The principal aim of this thesis is to extend current understandings of the dynamics of stage melodrama, as it was practised on the stages of the minor theatres in London during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, specifically by exploring the ways in which the genre represented, mediated, inflected, processed and systematised the experience of life in the new metropolis. A critical methodology has been employed in this study that is best described as hybrid, combining elements of cultural materialist analysis with a more performance-oriented mode of textual analysis. Where appropriate, reference is made to surviving publicity surrounding original productions such as playbills and reviews and, in order to locate the work within a concrete culture of production and consumption, to available data on the minor theatres in which it was performed. The theoretical underpinning of this study draws on a range of existing arguments surrounding the relationship between melodrama and modernity, but also on the work of urban theorists and cultural historians who have identified the metropolis as a significant catalyst in the formation of modernity. After outlining the conceptual framework and reviewing existing literature in the field, chapters continue with discussions of the emergence of proletarian protagonists in melodrama and their relationship with developing notions of metropolitan class consciousness; melodramatic representations of metropolitan space and the dynamics of movement through that space; nostalgic stagings of the rural past; melodrama’s relationship to Simmelian notions of metropolitan ‘mental life’; and the synergies between melodrama, the spectacular, and metropolitan culture. The overall aim is to add to current understanding of how melodrama interpreted the shifting physical forms and subjective and social experience of the early nineteenth-century city, but also how the city itself shaped, limited and enabled the forms of expression adopted by melodramatists.

Within the framework of the sociology of theatre, this thesis explores the current performance-making landscape of Prague, mapping the emergence of the nové divadlo (new theatre) movement since 2000. An examination of the historical development of Czech theatre foregrounds the discussion of contemporary practice, charting its changing social-political role in domestic and international contexts. Theatre’s significance in forging an ethnolinguistically defined national consciousness is considered as a legacy that continues to impact the field. Theatrical values originating in the nineteenth-century national revival are traced through the interwar avant-garde, dissident small theatre movement of the 1960s and auteur’s theatre of the 1970s and 1980s. The Velvet Revolution of 1989 and theatre artists’ contributions to the defeat of communism are considered as catalysing a period of self-reflexivity, as theatres grappled with new logistical infrastructures and faced a crisis of purpose both dramaturgical and social ins cope. These changes are framed by discussion of the divergent visions of the country’s future posited by Václav Havel and Václav Klaus throughout the 1990s, as well as tensions surrounding European Union ascension and other globalizing processes. A close examination of the nové divadlo infrastructure that has arisen in the past twenty years identifies the strategies by which this faction of the field has forged a third theatre- making space, distinct from either the repertory system or the pre-revolution avant-garde. Central to this discussion is a consideration of the nové divadlo’s companies, venues and festivals as both reactive and active: responding to an increasingly international city and, simultaneously, actively positioning Czech theatre on world stages. The work and critical reception of Farma v jeskyni (Farm in the Cave) and Krepsko, both self-defining as “international” by virtue of their composition and international touring presence, are considered with regard to the companies’ dramaturgy, methodology and social function. Finally, the thesis considers how the work of the new theatre movement and, specifically, Farma v jeskyni, constitutes a “practical politics” rooted in the political philosophy of Havel and Jan Patočka.

Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, the changing statuses of the writer and the text have not only been reflective of the ways in which collaborative theatre-making processes involving writing have changed, but are also emblematic of how theatre-makers have positioned themselves within the rapidly shifting cultural and economic climate in the UK. This thesis seeks to discover what shifts have occurred as well as future implications for the role of the commissioned writer. Its prime focus is an investigation of the working methods of three different generations of collaborating companies in the UK and the commissioned writers with whom they work: Shared Experience, Frantic Assembly and Filter Theatre. This investigation is structured on a company-by-company basis, examining two productions from each company (each written by different writers or writer/directors) as examples of writer-company collaborative practice, comparing one to the other in order to understand each company and writer’s approach to working collaboratively. It addresses such issues as, what is the role of the writer in new collaborative theatre-making culture in the UK and how it has been influenced by historical debates and practices regarding the role of the writer and the text: how texts can be produced in different processes that involve a writer; how authorship is negotiated by practice between writers and other creative collaborators; and the extent to which the models or processes of working analyzed here have originated from or been influenced by historical collaborative practice. This investigation utilizes interviews with practitioners involved in the development of these productions as well as company archival material and analyzes relevant contemporary texts and performances as well as the work of historical practitioners that has informed the legacy of these the three contemporary companies. In addition to performance theory, this thesis will draw on management and branding theory, in order to interrogate the relationship between hierarchy and the creative process, within the context of the changing cultural, economic and political climate of the early twenty-first century. This thesis will propose that historical practices of writing and collaboration and the distinct strands of working that evolved from it have a significant relationship to, and can illuminate contemporary practice as well as serve as historical models of working; some of the approaches to collaborative writing used by Shared Experience, Frantic Assembly and Filter Theatre can be considered either conscious copying or modification of an extant practice or accidental imitations which arose from similar cultural circumstances but embodied the same basic idea of an extant practice. This thesis will also propose that Shared Experience, Frantic Assembly and Filter Theatre and the commissioned writers and writer/directors with whom they have collaborated have developed a flexible process of working in order to allow for negotiation and serve their particular production and artistic goals. The role of an individual writer can change from company to company and production to production and therefore the author or authors of the piece might include not only the writer, but also the director, performers, designer and/or dramaturg. Ultimately, this thesis will look to the future by providing a framework with which performance scholars and emerging practitioners can better understand and also continue to develop writer-company collaborative practice.

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