This study adopts a twin approach to investigation of writers' motivation and method in translating, versionizing, and/or adapting into Scots plays from the historic repertoire of Continental European drama. First, it considers, through historical/critical research, the work ok, and statements by or about, selected writers representative by period of the development of a modern tradition in translating such plays for the Scottish stage from the 1940s through the 1990s. Second, it presents, through practice-as-research, self-reflective commentaries on two playscripts prepared as part of this study in order to allow self-recording and self-analysis of the process from the perspective of motivation and method. The playscripts are a version of Gerhart Hauptmann's Die Weber (The Weavers), and a co-translation of Carlo Goldoni's Le Baruffe Chiozzote (The Chioggian Squabbles; or, in this translation, The Chioggian Rammies).

This practice-based research is based around the creation of a triptych of performances entitled The Corbicula Cycle. The three performance pieces are: On The Edge, Through The Night and In The Shade. The aim of the practice is to take the supposedly ‘low’ artistic forms of the murder-mystery, Cinderella narrative, blackface minstrelsy and drag cabaret and interpenetrate them with theoretical content from postmodernism and identity politics whilst combining formal elements of dramatic writing and performance art practice. The emphasis of both the research and the research outcomes is a practical one. The DVDs and playscripts represent the core of the submission, with this thesis serving to support and contextualise the practice. Thus the contribution of this work is demonstrated not through new theoretical findings but through new artistic findings in the three performances. In terms of postmodernism, the research focuses on intertextuality; deconstruction; simulacra and simulation; split and shifting subjectivity; parody, pastiche, irony and the mixing of the genres. In relation to identity politics, the piece takes a postmodern view, covering cultural theories relating to gender, sexuality, class and race. The overarching objective in combining these different knowledge paradigms is to create a series of open, polysemantic texts which can be read in different ways by different viewers. Thus, it is hoped that the pieces can be shown successfully outside of an academic context and be open to readers other than an ‘expert-spectator’ audience of academics and artists. None of these artistic or theoretical constructions is innovative in itself. However, this research represents a modest contribution to knowledge through the subtly new ways it combines the paradigms of cultural theory, dramatic new writing and performance art with the generic artistic models of the murder-mystery, the Cinderella narrative, drag cabaret and blackface minstrelsy. It also provides substantial new insights through critical reflection upon process and products, exploring the play between artistic aims, principles of composition and audience response.

This thesis concentrates on investigation into the main preoccupations of five Scottish women playwrights in the last twenty years, with an emphasis on the ways in which they deal with the issues of gender identity. The study examines fifteen plays by five very different women authors in the context of modern feminist literary analysis. The main objective of the study is to show how Sue Glover, Liz Lochhead, Marcella Evaristi, Sharman Macdonald and Rona Munro – having come from different experiential perspectives – used recurring themes, imagery and discursive modes in exploring female identity. A further objective of the study is to open up and encourage new avenues for exploring female identity in the work of Scottish women playwrights. It also sets out to identify the common themes and imagery shared by these authors, and the ways in which they are expressed in language.

The thesis studies the female voice in the local culture in the post-devolution dramatic adaptations of the Scottish Makar Liz Lochhead. It acknowledges the dramatist’s idiosyncratic approach of fusing poetry and drama in order to question the new internationalist national model in Scotland resembling the main features of anti-colonial nationalisms post 1990s. Central to the thesis is the question of local female voice in the current national debate and whether and to what extent it problematizes the relation between feminism and nationalism in the new civic model introduced after devolution as an internationalist in Scotland. Lochhead’s idiosyncratic voice of a poet and dramatist is interpreted as a non-feminist and non-nationalist with a specific focus on individualised female dramatic representations. The complex semiotic interpretation of the constructed dramatic images by the playwright in her post-devolutionary adaptations of the classics shows a problematic reading of gender difference as cultural identity which appears with distorted features in the political revisions laden with self-satire. She applies metonymic use of female characterisation in order to reflect upon the changes in the cultural, political and linguistic climate, which results in a shift from a post-colonial dramatic discourse to a socio-linguistic one in the understanding of Robin Lakoff about a highly politicised and performative language and identity. The female voice in the local culture is frequently silenced and partially invisible, thus excluded from the political/national debate. However, Lochhead’s subject often re-asserts itself through silent resistance and body visibility to refer to the instability of male political voices and sometimes to ironize their lack of individual identity.

This thesis explores the theoretical and dramaturgical challenges faced by modern productions of the Oresteia with particular reference to two modern Royal National Theatre productions: Sir Peter Hall's (1981) and Katie Mitchell's (1999). It argues that to appreciate these challenges requires a detailed knowledge of the theatricality of the original text. In support of this position, this thesis contains a detailed analysis of Aeschylus' Agamemnon exploring how the playwright creates the play's world in text and performance. The discussion's focus concentrates on how theatrical space (seen, implied, and diegetic) constructs the world of the play. Concomitant in this discussion is an analysis of how Aeschylus invites the audience to decode the play's theatricality through its knowledge of epic literature and its own non-theatrical spatial environments and practices. To facilitate this understanding, the text and performance are explored with reference to political, domestic and ritual space. In considering these productions, the assumption of theatre reviews that productions can be described as adhering to either modernising or archeologically inspired staging practices is challenged. It is argued that modern productions should be analysed with reference to directorial, translator, and actor intentions. Through a methodology based on interviewing theatre practitioners, the productions of Hall and Mitchell are seen to be irreducibly modern, yet still maintain a relationship with Aeschylus. Hall's use of ancient staging conventions is seen to be a modern interpretation of the theatrical past, which aimed at communicating the foreignness of Aeschylus. In contract, Mitchell's use of modern staging techniques made the Oresteia familiar to a modern audience, but, by suggesting political, domestic, and ritual equivalents, still articulated with the ancient performance.

This thesis aims to explore the issues around intercultural translation and whether or not intercultural theatre can even truly represent non-domestic texts without distortion. In order to explore this in detail, this thesis uses as its research target an in-depth analysis of two productions produced at Edinburgh International Festival (EIF). Edinburgh International Festival was chosen as an appropriate cultural platform for this discussion due to its international recognition. In order to reveal the Eurocentric-oriented ideology within the Festival's policy and discuss the implications of this Eurocentric ideology for possibilities of intercultural translation, the thesis will explore the changes in programming policy by different EIF Festival Directors since 1947. Edward Said's 'Orientalism' is used as major reference regarding the Eurocentric ideology, and the concept of Western interculturalism. Several occidental and semi-western views are explored with relation to Broadway production on oriental themes in order to further explore Said's idea of "Orientalism". The thesis shows how this idea is present in the EIF's context, based on an in-depth analysis of two intercultural productions of 'Macbeth': Ninagawa and Kunju. The aim is to show how these two productions represent a Western audience's voice. Since the question of identification is one of the major concerns in intercultural theatre practice, the thesis discusses the issues of identity and analyses potential for indigenous Asian theatre forms to engage in intercultural exchange in a way that would be built on equality rather than changing those forms to suit Western audiences' understanding. Accordingly, two intercultural productions of Ninagawa and Kunju 'Macbeth', which were presented on EIF's stage in 1985 and 1987 respectively, and their performance texts will be analysed in terms of the implication of EIF's programming policy on Japan's and China's theatre works presented at the Festival. The resulting research outcomes indicate that equal exchange and authentic representation between different cultures may be impossible.

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1991.

Live performances involve complex interactions between a large number of co-present people. Performance has been defined in terms of these performer-audience dynamics, but little is known about how they work. A series of live performance experiments investigate these dynamics, through teaching a humanoid robot some stagecraft, contrasting live and recorded performance, and spotlighting the audience. This requires the development of methods capable of capturing the fleeting responses of people within an audience and making sense of the resulting massed multi-modal data. The results show that in live events interaction matters. Extending the idea that our experience of performance is shaped by interactions with others, namely by talking with people afterwards, analogous social patterns are identified within the event. Specifically, some of the interactional dynamics well established for close, dyadic encounters extend to performers and audience members, despite the somewhat anonymised nature of massed audiences. While individual performer-audience effects were identified, the primary axis of social interaction is shown to be between audience members. This emphasises how it is being in an audience - common across diverse performance genres - that shapes the experience of live events. This work argues that the term liveness is ill-defined, but need not be. These interactional dynamics have a functional basis and depend solely on what is externally manifest. Understanding liveness in this way allows a perspicuous account - relating the perceptual environment within the event to the social contingency of experience - and can provide a systematic basis for design.

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1979.

This dissertation aims to investigate an extended notion of site within site-specific dance theatre. Using multiple theoretical frameworks, which include second wave feminism and its recognition of the body as a site of/for struggle (Goldberg, 1987) in conjunction with site-specific performance theory (Kaye, 2000; Kwon, 2004), Foucault's (1979) notion of 'biopower' and cultural studies, this dissertation seeks to engage site-specific dance theatre as a mode of social and cultural production. Multiculturalism (Schechner, 1988/1991) and interculturalism (Bharucha, 1996; Schechner, 1991) in performance theory and practice, are also engaged to solidify debates around performance as instances of cultural production. These frameworks are engaged in relation to the contemporary production of site-specific dance theatre in Durban, South Africa. Local dance practitioner and academic Jay Pather's site-specific/installation works CityScapes, Durban (2002) and Home, Durban (2003) are used as case-studies for interrogation and investigation in relation to the chosen theoretical discourses. CityScapes and Home provide two instances of site-specific dance theatre that have emerged from within post-apartheid South Africa. The two works are engaged in close relation to the post-apartheid South African context, and its promotion of a 'rainbow nation' in the 'New South Africa'. CityScapes provides a platform to engage ideas of access to and ownership of dance forms and the spaces which they occupy - prompting critical questioning around the impact of South Africa's historical segregations and their influence upon contemporary (South African) society/societies. Similarly, Home provides a platform to engage notions of 'homespaces' as these relate to access to and ownership of private and public spaces, and how this impacts cultural inter(re)actions in post-apartheid South Africa. Both case-studies provide instances of critical performance practice, which allows for meaningful theoretical inter(re)action in relation to the two chosen performance works. In this light, this dissertation also provides an instance of much needed academic enquiry into the local, South African contemporary dance-scape. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.