This thesis is a study of the stage history of six plays and three seasons of Shakespeare at the Old Vic as they are related to one man: Sir John Gielgud. Through the assembly of various sorts of evidence ranging from promptbooks, sound-recordings, reviews, programmes, interviews, correspondence, designer's blue-prints, I have attempted to reconstruct the performances and the productions in order to assess Gielgud's contribution as a Shakespearean actor and director. The plays looked at are Richard II, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear and The Tempest, the Old Vic seasons those from 1929 to 1931. Each chapter, except for the first on the Old Vic which considers a repertory of productions of different plays performed by the same company, examines a series of separate productions of one play in chronological sequence to highlight developments in Gielgud's technique over the years and his response to the more widespread changes in the tradition of the stage interpretation of Shakespeare. So the selection of roles and productions was governed by the idea of examining trends and to set Gielgud's work in the context of the accumulating tradition of the play's interpretation in performance, not to look at single productions only. The resulting selection focuses on Gielgud, the actor and director, at various points throughout his entire career. The earliest production considered is in 1929, the latest in 1974. The conclusion then attempts to draw Gielgud's involvement with Richard II, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear and The Tempest together to establish an overall view of their relationship in the light of the principal currents of change in the theatre from the early part of this century to the present day. The appendices at the back list the full range of Gielgud's Shakespeare, including his film appearances, and the dates of openings with complete casts of the productions concentrated on in the text.

This thesis explores the relationships between stage costume and British historical culture in the period 1776-1834. Until the painstakingly researched antiquarian stagings of the mid-nineteenth century, the history of historical stage costume has typically been described in terms of a stereotyped ‘Van Dyck dress’. Yet the period witnessed the expansion of antiquarianism and portrait print collecting, the development of the Picturesque and Neo-Gothic aesthetics, the success of historical novels and a general desire to know more about the habits and costumes of the past. This interdisciplinary analysis situates stage costume within the wider visual and historical culture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Drawing on theatrical material related to the London theatres as well as paintings, engravings, book illustrations, shows and exhibitions, this study argues that the representation of historical stage costume in the visual arts reflects new ways of conceiving and depicting history, in which interest in the everyday life of past periods and a focus on the material and the visual were fundamental. My research suggests that historical costume in the theatre and its representation in theatrical portraiture played a role in a broader process that sought to define British art and identity. The first chapter maps out advances in the knowledge of historical dress and explores how historical costume became a key feature in theatrical portraiture. The second chapter explores contemporary conceptions and uses of anachronism in relation to shifting notions of historical truth in the representation of dress in the arts. The third chapter demonstrates how costume was used to create visual representations of historical continuity, a process that signalled new conceptions of historiography. The following three chapters focus on depictions of the costume of different periods. They suggest that representations of historical dress in the theatre helped shape the period’s historical imagination. A study of classical costume enables an examination of contemporary debates about authenticity, while reconstructions of Scottish dress and English medieval costume reflect prevalent aesthetic trends and thoughts about British identity and the responsibility of art and the theatre in teaching national history. The final chapter considers representations of historical figures beyond the theatre: an examination of portraits in extra-illustrated books and of tinselled toy theatre sheets demonstrates novel ways of engaging with history that evince a new concern with the materiality of stage costume and effected a theatricalisation of the past.

This thesis is a 'practice-led' project that uses observational documentation methods, a long-term collaboration with three live artists, and a narrative analysis to encourage a visual display of 'knowing' the person who makes live art, the performance work itself and the reality of producing and archiving live art. My practice of documenting live performances produces digital representations of the three artists I collaborated with. The fragmented and non-linear expressions of the live performances, which can be viewed in the video documents, also find echo in the life history interviews of the artists. Triangulated with an examination of the artists' websites, these diverse texts provide insight into how the live artists make sense of their embodied autobiographical experiences in a virtual environment. A post-structuralist narrative analysis proposes that the live and online performance-narratives constitute the artists' self as 'an artist' and examines these texts for ideas of the 'self-portrait' and of 'life as experienced'. The research suggests this is especially helpful to the audience's meaning-making processes when engaging with Live Art. The thesis investigates the three artists' representations of the body, specifically their strategies to compel a disruptive reading of nudity, femininity and motherhood. Other performative strategies found in these artists' work lead to discussions on ritual enfleshed in performance, based on Richard Schechner's (1995) understanding of iterative practices, and of participatory incantations that integrate narratives found in myths into narratives of selfhood and community. This thesis aims to develop the understanding of contemporary performance art pratice through examples of three artists' autobiographical performativity in live and online environments. The thesis advances narrative theory beyond its literary framework through a visual and practice-based approach. By linking narrative theory with visual methods this project seeks to demonstrate that experiential approaches could be relevant to narrtaive researches, visual anthropologists, performance ethnographers, as well as live artists, all faced with the inevitability of mediatisation. It contributes to ideas on the digital dispersions of the live artists' identity as not a fracturing of the unified body experienced in live performance but instead as a place for the artists to exercise agency through virtual performativity. The thesis consists of two parts, a website (http://bsdroth.wix.com/thesis2013) and a written text. The online videos and the written text, when read together, form a performative analysis towards the 'knowing who' of the artists. It contributes to the growing interest in methodologies that investigate, document and present cultural experiences and their perceived value. The online presentation of my practice also demonstrates the digital and virtual environment the live artists' work operates in, as exemplified in this thesis. The website is a physical manifestation of integral ideas in this project, around authenticity, ownership and virtual experiences.

This research project is aimed at investigating musicality and theatre, and seeks to develop “musicalised dramaturgies” as dramaturgies for performances that venture beyond representation. The musical dimension is approached as an ontological aspect of theatre manifested in the work of the performer and in the process of dramaturgy as developed kinaesthetically with respect to the audience. The somatic dimension of the theatre act is investigated in terms of rhythmic and melodic associations which are proposed as sources of action in musicalised dramaturgies. The study looks at the conditions of musicality as dramaturgy by exploring the possibilities of developing performance processes generated by rhythms, tempos, and melodies as elements of the musical condition. The study acknowledges important developments that took place in the wake of theatre reforms at the turn of the twentieth century that gave more space to the presence of the actor in the creation of performance. These led to a ‘turn-to-performance' in theatre which, since the 1960s, characterised practical research where practitioners challenged traditions and pushed boundaries in order to develop non-representational practices. Gradually the theatre event shifted from serving as a basic means of communication of messages to a process where experiences are shared by performers and audiences. Contemporary scholarship acknowledges these developments in terms of a postdramatic critical framework where hierarchies and subordinations in the organisation of the work give way to equality and simultaneity of means. The postdramatic context serves as a theoretical foundation around which this study is set. Investigations were conducted via practical and theoretical analysis. Practical research was done in collaboration with Italian professional theatre ensemble Laboratorio Permanente di Ricerca sull'Arte dell'Attore (Permanent Research Laboratory on the Art of the Actor), and followed two complementary strands, viz. preexpressive and performance work. The pre-expressive strand had two levels: i. daily work with the actors where the research issues were put into practice and developed with professional actors, and ii. workshops and stages for University students, amateur actors, and laypersons interested in the work. The performance strand developed as a theatre work entitled Welcoming the End of the World. The piece was premièred in Malta in July 2011, and served as context where musicalised dramaturgies were put into practice and used creatively as foundations for performance. Theoretical considerations are discussed in a written document accompanying video documentation of Welcoming the End of the World. The written part examines the work of Konstantin Stanislavsky on rhythm and tempo-rhythm, and contributions made by Jerzy Grotowski with respect to what I argue are ideas of “embodied musicality” in his theatre making. The work of Grotowski is discussed in light of the claim for an Apollonian-Dionysian bond proposed by Nietzsche in his The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music, published in 1872. The research also refers to recent developments in theatre practice including the work of Eugenio Barba, and critical discourses expounded by Henry Lefebvre, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-Luc Nancy. In various ways their ideas inform the investigations and provide this research project with a critical foundation with respect to which musicality is proposed as dramaturgy for theatre performance.

Στην παρούσα μελέτη οι Βάκχες εξετάζονται ως θεατρικό κείμενο, το οποίο δυνάμει περιέχει τη σκηνική του πραγμάτωση. Η τραγωδία αναλύεται με σκοπό να εντοπιστούν οι σκηνοθετικές ενδείξεις και τα πιθανά σκηνικά προβλήματα και να αναδειχθεί η σχέση και η αλληλεπίδραση κειμένου και παράστασης. / The aim of this study is to present a detailed analysis of the stagecraft of Euripides’ Bacchae. It proposes possible staging arrangements taking into account the text of the play, the staging conventions of 5th century tragedy, the topography of the ancient theatre and parallel scenes from the tragic corpus. The study offers an analysis of the stage action bringing together different elements of performance, such as entrances and exits of the actors and the chorus, masks and costumes, scenery, music and dance, in order to illuminate the meaning constructed by the visual dimension of tragedy.

My thesis examines the production practices of the Propeller Theatre Company, an all-male ensemble under the direction of Edward Hall. To date, Propeller has worked exclusively on Shakespeare’s plays, staging eighteen full-length productions of eleven plays. The critical attention Propeller has received remains centered on its all-male casting, but my project goes beyond this aspect of Propeller’s work to analyze how Propeller engages practically with Shakespeare’s scripts and to what ends. As a touring company, Propeller has broad popular and commercial appeal, yet there exists little scholarship on the company. In addressing this gap, I demonstrate how Propeller offers something unique in Shakespearean performance as well as investigate the process by which the company produces Shakespeare’s plays. The first chapter begins the work of examining Propeller specifically through its director, Edward Hall, focusing on the way in which Hall’s personal opinions regarding theatre and Shakespeare led to Propeller’s evolution from a one-off production (Henry V, 1997) into an established company. Chapter two concentrates on how designer Michael Pavelka works with Hall in creating the conceptual framework for a production and how he creates scenic and costume designs for the company. The next chapter explores the effect of the Watermill Theatre’s relative isolation on the company's early working practices, the consequences of the first-refusal policy, casting across and within productions (including cross-gender casting and the personation of women), the collaborative rehearsal process, music, and Propeller’s approach to Shakespearean verse speaking. In the fourth chapter, I examine two productions — The Taming of the Shrew (2006) and The Merchant of Venice (2008) — as case studies of how the company performs Shakespeare. The concluding chapter examines the challenges facing Propeller as it attempts to balance a defined reputation with a desire to grow artistically as a company.

This thesis draws on practice-as-research (PaR) and its documentation to investigate experimental theatre as transdisciplinary performance. I include case studies from my practice with Fail Better Productions and consider multi-/inter-/trans-disciplinary methods in theatre studies. Examples of twentieth-century experimental theatre are studied to define ‘three problems’ in performance: the organic/mechanical, theatrical/scientific and playful/experimental. The concept of ‘entanglement’ further develops my understanding of PaR methodology. In Chapter 1, Samuel Beckett’s later dramatic works are explored as ‘theatre machines’, with a particular focus on George Devine’s 1964 production of Play. Following an analysis of the Fail Better’s Discords (2010), Beckettian embodiment is articulated as ‘organic machinery’. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Beckett’s ‘corporeal hereditaments’ and ‘plasticity’ in performance. Chapter 2 investigates Artaudian ‘theatre laboratories’, in particular Peter Brook’s 1964 Theatre of Cruelty experiments. This is compared with Fail Better’s interdisciplinary project Endlessness (2011). The final section develops an analysis of ‘scientific’ theatre and experimentation–as–performance, focusing particularly on forms of ‘reflexivity’. Chapter 3 examines participatory performance, specifically focusing on corporeal movement within installations such as Fail Better Fragments (2012). Joan Littlewood’s experimental performance practices are analyzed, specifically her Fun Palace project (c.1961–8), for the influence of Rudolf Laban upon her work. The potential for community engagement within these ‘experimental playgrounds’ will be explored in relation to ‘permeability’ in performance and Laban’s ‘effort attitude’ of flow. Finally, the thesis re-articulates the ‘three problems’ in terms of play and discipline, which are interrogated via the concepts of failure, ludus, and embodiment. I will demonstrate how a historiographical approach to PaR can re-invigorate methodology, before considering transdisciplinary performance in relation to ‘playfulness’ and Csikzsentmihalyi’s ‘flow’. The thesis concludes by briefly developing an understanding of performances as ‘epistemic things’, PaR as ‘unfinished thinking’, and experimental theatre practice as a transdisciplinary phenomenon of ‘not-yet-knowing’.

This thesis investigates the practice of two contemporary theatre directors. Thomas Ostermeier in Germany, and Katie Mitchell in Britain, have forged careers that have brought them recognition across Europe, and Mitchell is now a regular guest director at Ostermeier’s Schaubühne theatre in Berlin. Crossing cultural borders, their work affords the opportunity to investigate national discourses and compare critical trends. This thesis considers their trajectories over the last twenty years, from their training in a newly unified Europe through to prestigious invitations to bring their mature work to national and international festivals. More importantly, it argues that these are directors whose creativity remains rooted in the literary and dramatic canon. At every turn their innovations have been stimulated by new textual sources, prompting them to develop work that investigates politics, gendered subjectivities and issues of form. Examining their uses of Chekhov and Ibsen to probe questions of perception and cognition, this thesis tracks their developing interest in consciousness. Whereas Ostermeier focused his exploration using early modern text (Shakespeare), Mitchell used the modernist literary novel (Virginia Woolf) as the basis of an intermedial reinvention of form. Through the close analysis of key productions, this thesis explores issues of production as well as reception. It investigates why their particular uses of text and technology have bemused or antagonised critics and scholars, and interrogates their commitment to drama, to realist praxis, and to modernist concerns in a cultural moment where postdrama and the postmodern predominate. Although these are practitioners committed to the investigation of interests that many regard as untimely, this thesis argues that the reactionary, in their hands, is the radical.

The aim of this thesis is to explore through historical and practical research, the use of gymnastics-based practices for contemporary performer training. This thesis addresses the following key questions: What are gymnastics-based practices? How have gymnastics-based practices already influenced performer training, particularly in the work of François Delsarte, Rudolph Laban, and Jacques Lecoq? How can gymnastics-based practices be understood, applied, and developed in order to contribute to performance/performer training? The practical investigation employs the use of gymnastics-based practices in a series of three studio-based projects which focus on the development of the training. Project 1 explores gymnastics-based practices in relation to my own process as a performer. In Project 2, I apply gymnastics-based practices to the facilitation of a group-devised performance. Project 3 uses gymnastics-based practices to facilitate the actor in character development, vocal work, and performance of a naturalistic text. In this manner, this thesis has developed a set of exercises, workshops, and frameworks which draw on gymnastics-based practices to activate the performer in several different contexts.

This practice-as-research project discusses modes, processes and aesthetics of contemporary dramaturgy, as practiced in experimental theatre and dance works in Europe from the 1990s onwards. In order to do this, the project draws particularly on discourses around ‘drama’ and suggests that the term can be redefined and usefully rehabilitated for both analysis and the creation of experimental performances. More specifically, this project defines drama (deriving from the Greek dro=act) as stage action, and dramaturgy (deriving from the Greek drama + ergo= work) as a practice that works endlessly for the creation of this drama/action on stage and is therefore always connected with it. In order to approach the newly proposed notion of ‘experimental drama’, this research uses the six main dramatic elements offered by Aristotle in his Poetics: plot, character, language, thought, the visual and music. Furthermore, it adds a seventh element: the spectator and contemporary understandings around the conditions of spectatorship. It then offers an analysis of dramaturgical processes and aesthetics of experimental stage works through these elements. Given that this is a practice-as-research project, it is accordingly multi-modal and offers its perspectives on dramaturgy and experimental drama through both critical and performance texts, documentation traces (photographs and video recordings) of artistic practice – all present in this thesis – and a live event; all these modes complement each other and move constantly between the stage and the page to proceed with the research’s inquiries. The current thesis has borrowed the dramaturgical structure of two artistic projects, created within the frame of this research practice, to generate its writings. The introductory parts of this text place the work within the discourse on practice-as-research and discuss the project’s proposal for an analysis of contemporary dramaturgy through drama. The Short (Research) Stories that follow analyze experimental works, created both within the frame of this research practice and outside it, by other artists, following the Aristotelian model. The element of spectatorship intervenes in this analysis instead of standing separately in the thesis. The project’s closing live event returns from the page to the stage to continue and add to discussions around central issues of the work, in its various distinct modes.