This thesis provides a critical and practice based exploration of a recent ‘theatrical turn’ in the visual arts from the point of view of a theatre maker engaged in interdisciplinary practice, and asks what implications these developments may have for theatre making. As a context, I explore ideas of anti-theatricality which rely on a Platonic definition of truth that find expression within certain discourses and practices within the discipline of visual art. Through referencing the ancient Greek cultural practice of theoria that was appropriated by Plato, as well as Heidegger’s alternative concept of truth as aletheia (unconcealment) and his theorising of the festival, I examine the possibility of a re-instigation of a theoric festive mode which reconnects the idea of theory to its practice based antecedents and acknowledges the potential of theatricality to stage an aletheic form of truth. My first piece of practice, the film The Making of Us, explores the use of framing and theatricality in an interdisciplinary artwork, drawing on Derrida’s ideas of the parergon and Heidegger’s concept of technology and Gestell (enframing), to propose an interdisciplinary practice that might ‘rest on the frame’ (Derrida, 1987). Finally, my play How To Act is an attempt to create a contemporary Greek tragedy in order to investigate the expression of aletheic truth within a ‘mono-disciplinary’ theatrical frame and provide a theoric return to my own practice as a theatre maker.

This thesis looks at adaptations of nineteenth-century novels/plays by Mats Ek, Robert Wilson, Shared Experience, Foursight Theatre, Company:Collisions and The Maly. All the productions, companies and individuals discussed have used past material remains in the form of a novel or dramatic text to create a contemporary interpretation. In my research, I have used nineteenth-century material remains as a guide to understanding how these past indicators have affected the female performing body today. For instance, how the choreographer/director’s knowledge of past forms of physical inscription and intertextual approach reveal an embodied knowledge of the past, allowing the choreographer/director/performer to explore them within the present female body. I have chosen adaptations of nineteenth-century novels and dramatic texts, because this era focussed on physical movement as conveying emotional messages, which transferred to what was represented upon the stage. As a consequence, acting manuals were published in the nineteenth century, displaying illustrations of physical codes. These physically coded messages, historical illustrations and other material remains provided a way to read the past body and identify its traces today. In using this approach, I was able to discern what links remained from the original referent through past perceptions and representations. The rationale for choosing the productions and companies discussed within this thesis was their focus on the expressive aspects of the physical body in performance as well as the recreation of specific nineteenth-century novels/plays. In particular, Mats Ek and Robert Wilson use physical dance traditions of the past moving body and this has affected the choice of movement patterns for their performers. However, I also chose to compare their work against the female collective approach of other companies and how this informed the techniques used in rehearsal and performance. Lastly, I looked at an ensemble company and how the continuity of their collaboration compared against the previous companies discussed.

My field of interest concerns the representation of the sea and its prominent presence as a space with multiple dynamics, symbolism and interpretations in ancient Greek tragedy. Using the wanderings of mortals as a main axis, I will attempt to explore how the sea, as an open dramatic milieu, acquires a significant function, which is directly connected with mortals’ destiny. The sea’s unpredictable nature is projected as a metaphysical environment, which could be identified as a boundary between the Greeks and the barbarians, life and death, nostos and nostalgia. Increasingly, recent scholarship has produced a variety of detailed analyses and considerations concerning the spatial dynamics of tragedy. Although the seascape is recognized as an influential landscape at the centre of the Greek world, only a limited amount of scholarly attention has been devoted to this nautical realm as illustrated in ancient Greek tragedy. The aim of this thesis is to discuss the use and the perception of this powerful and effective space in a selection of tragedies, and to focus on the treatments of the sea as an intersection of multiple connotations and references. The thesis concludes that within the context of a world in constant turmoil, journeys at sea can be interpreted as illustrating and revealing, through the adventures and aspirations of mortals, the socio-political and historical framework of the Greek society contemporary with the tragedies. The poetic image of the sea, as expressed in the tragic texts and connected with the capability of the human imagination to re-create a personal vision of history and myth, forms a remarkable topographic environment full of instability which, in many cases, depicts humanity’s ambivalent emotions and uncertain future.

This thesis examines instances of intercultural theatre seen on the Anglo stage, and aims at the purpose of a broader reading of the Chinese cultural elements applied in these productions. Working with a series of concepts related to what Deleuze and Guattari call "assemblage," a new approach is developed to observe intercultural theatre. Previously, intercultural performance has often been examined from a viewpoint that focuses on the problems of cultural identity and authenticity. While not disagreeing with the questions raised by such a perspective, this thesis seeks to develop new ways to make sense of the often found contradictory trajectories in intercultural. theatre. Three productions are studied in this thesis. Peter Sellars's adaptation of a classic Chinese play, Peony Pavilion, sets out to describe the modern life of Asian Americans. Most often, a production like this is assessed according to the degree of deviation from the classic presentation. In contrast, my discussion of this production explores cultural boundaries that define the female leads and the music composed by Tan Dun. Yellow Earth Theatre's Lear's Daughters provides another occasion to unravel how tiny elements from different dimensions can be connected from afar and form bigger assemblages. The third production, Play to Win, also by Yellow Earth Theatre, deals with issues regarding young East Asian people in Britain. The concept of "becoming-minor" is applied in order to comprehend the novelty in such a play and to reject the conventional approaches of identity politics when it comes to ethnic issues. Taking up these Deleuzian concepts is an attempt to delineate intercultural theatre with a flexible route to locate divergent cultural elements in one single performance. In doing so, the thesis constructs a way to see a theatre production not as a representation of real life but a presentation or formation of singular events.

This thesis investigates artistic and poetic interventions within historic buildings in Malta and elsewhere, exploring notions of subversion of the institutional messages and the ways history can be reconceptualised and questioned within the frameworks of established and authoritarian structures, using concepts of theatricality and performativity. The interpretation inside the Baroque Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta is revisited as a route into exploring the tensions as well as the collaborations that emerge when the performative worlds of the Baroque and the post-modern collide. The study highlights Baroque ephemeral ceremonies, when Valletta was transformed from a war machine into a spectacular theatre by the ruling Order of the Knights of St. John. It examines how Valletta developed into a performative European Baroque city, interpreting a macro-cosmos in a choreographed micro-cosmos. This provides a backdrop to the subsequent study of performance projects that have tried to inhabit, subvert and reframe theatrical statements of power. This thesis draws on theories of liminality and the liminoid, building upon recent research on immersion. It offers a discussion of the potential dual role of artists as political collaborators and producers of powerful images, as well as their role as drivers of institutional critiques and social actors capable of negotiating and creating critical spaces. In particular, it offers an in depth analysis of the poetic interventions of the Malta and UK based artist and theatre collectives: START, The Rubberbodies Collective, Theatre Anon, WildWorks and Punchdrunk. Ultimately this thesis contributes to a new historiography, one which highlights the significance of contemporary performances responding to historic sites. It concludes that Malta was and still is conforming to a wider European performance, and argues that the “Baroque” should be understood as a transhistorical state that has extended beyond its historical confines, taking on hybrid forms. It demonstrates that Baroque theories concerning the “concetto” have resonance in 21st century conceptual art, demanding a more active response from the viewer. This thesis contends that through performative fusions, liminal and liminoid realms are created, which produce dream-like experiences, stirring the emotions, and arguably provoking unconscious associations within the participant, potentially creating reflexivity, agency and change.

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In the wartime China of the 1940s, Yang Jiang wrote two very popular comedies: As You Desire (1943) and Swindle (1943). The genre of these two comedies and their relation to Western literature is discussed, and the connection between the styles of Yang and Austen is noticed and established on the ground that their works are regarded as belonging to the genre of the comedy of manners. This study focuses on Yang's reception of Austen's comedic style in her own comedies and examines how she receives and transforms the comedic elements of Austen's works onto the stage of the 1940s wartime Shanghai theatre. This thesis is divided into three parts. Part I discusses the background and horizon of expectations of Yang's reception of Austen's comedic art. Yang's direct reception of Austen's comic style is observed in her critique of Austen, in which her interpretation of Austen's style is generically related to the comedy of manners. Yang's reading experience of the familiar works of the comedy of manners in classical Chinese literature, as well as the comedies of manners written by Chinese playwrights in the China of the 1920s to 1940s, is the significant key to comprehending her horizon of expectations in the reception of Austen's style. Part II examines Yang's reception of Austen's style of the comedy of manners. The similarities between the styles of these two writers are discovered in the contexts of the Cheung depiction of female laughter, the spatial settings and anti-romanticism. Part III discusses Yang's transformation of Austen's comedic art in her own comedies. Living in a more turbulent environment than did Austen, Yang transforms Austen's comedic art in accordance with wartime Shanghai's socio-historical and socio-literary context. This transformation is demonstrated in two aesthetic orders of Yang's comedies: disillusionment and detachment.

The first part of the thesis considers reviews of Anouilh's plays in the order in which they were first performed. The examination shows how the critics at first encouraged Anouilh as a young playwright of talent hut later showed only partial sensitivity to his style and technique, their judgements on his theatricalist approach often being affected by their emotional reaction to the content of his plays. Throughout Anouilh's career reviewers have noted new devices and developments as they have occurred. The second and more important part of the thesis examines the plays, again in chronological order, this time noting in greater detail how Anouilh's style develops and the way in which play increases in importance. There is a progression from simple references to role-playing, through individuals performing parts either alone or in concert with others, to the use of extracts from other works, flash-backs, dream-sequences and the like. This investigation also shows that as Anouilh's exploitation of play became more complex, so the mechanics of his theatre became more exposed. Each example of a variation in Anouilh's use of play is further discussed in terms of its significance to individual plays and to his theatre as a whole. This discussion reveals that he uses play to probe various aspects of the relationship between truth and fantasy. The conclusion reached is that after some hesitation and with numerous doubts, Anouilh's theatre seems, in general terms, to assert that fantasy is not only preferable to reality but even, perhaps, the greater truth. Life is depicted as degrading, but also as something that in the end has to be borne. Anouilh has imbued the device of play with surprising variety and expressed numerous ideas through it. Pervading all flows his apprehension of mankind's unhappy condition, to which, with the sensitivity of a poet, he has given expression in the form of drama.

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No description available.