Theatre as an art form has often been associated with notions of presence. The live immediacy of the actor, the unmediated unfolding of dramatic action and the energy generated through an actor-audience relationship are among the ideas frequently used to explain theatrical experience and all are underpinned by some understanding of presence. Precisely what is meant by presence in the theatre is part of what this thesis sets out to explain. Presence, I argue, is not so much a single concept, but is a term which encompasses differing accounts of theatres aesthetic or experiential specificity. While I have attempted to show how concepts of presence have developed over time, most of the forthcoming discussion is rooted in twentieth century thought, when theatres aesthetic autonomy became an increasingly important concern in the context of artistic modernism and the rise of rival media such as film and television. However, an equally important part of this thesis has been to question the relevance of concepts of presence within the context of contemporary theory. Since the nineteen-eighties in particular, theatre theorists have been inclined to critique the notion of presence from a poststructuralist perspective. Additionally, the increasing use of technology in performance and a recognition of the pervasive influence of the media in contemporary western society has made traditional appeals to theatrical presence seem increasingly retrograde. In the light of these concerns, questions are raised about how the distinctiveness of theatre might best be articulated without reinstating the current opposition between those who advocate theatrical presence, and those who treat the concepts of presence with suspicion. By drawing together discussions which posit presence as the essence of theatre alongside poststructuralist misgivings about the validity of such claims, I have attempted to re-position the concept of presence within a contemporary theoretical context. Without wishing to idealise the stage as a privileged site which is experienced in terms of presence, I argue that we should instead examine the potential of theatre to put presence into play. Rather than look at theatre as present, I propose instead to explore how theatre manipulates our experience of the present, challenging rather than reinforcing an audiences experience of the live or the immediate. Drawing on ideas in semiotics, phenomenology and performativity, I argue that a framework for thinking about presence, enriched by poststructuralist theory, can inform the analysis of theatrical performance. While by no means a complete survey of presence in the theatre, it is my hope that this thesis will help to suggest new ways of thinking about the tangled set of ideas which surround this concept, and how they might contribute to our understanding of theatres representational possibilities.

Mask Praxis is an investigation of the theories and practices behind the uses of the mask in modern drama from 1896 to 2004. The study traces the crisis in humanism through the use of idealist and materialist masks by theatre practitioners and explains how the search for a unified field was overlaid by fractured identities and a slide into dissonance. How important are the masks that people adopt on the stage for understanding their actions in society? How does the metaphorical power and perceptual ambiguity of the mask correlate with intentions of its maker and performer? What is the relationship between the mask and the face of the actor, and what does the mask do that cannot be done unaided? What are the main approaches to actor training that have used masks, and how are these training systems connected to wider belief systems? What do we learn from the act of masking about self-perception and social being, and what are the principal considerations that this gives rise to? This investigation proceeds from a consideration of major theories and practices. Chapter 1 examines mask performance theories, conventions, and typologies. Chapter 2 analyses the specificity of the mask, materials and methods, representative mask-makers and provides casebook studies on the Sartori family and the Masks for Menander Project. Chapter 3 evaluates actor-training under the mask from Copeau to Lecoq. Chapter 4 assesses the masks of idealist modernism and Chapter 5 considers the masks of materialist modernism. The final chapter is dedicated to transnational flows, multinational productions and the notion of connectivity. It brings new evidence to bear on the emergent field of masks, puppets and performing objects and sets down a major overview of the mask as a primary iconographic tool and as a liminoid instrument from which to mediate and direct the flow of power in a system.

This thesis analyses dramatic and historical narratives about the Holocaust. Primarily, it focuses on Israeli, German and Austrian writers from the time of the Final solution (1941) to the mid 1990s. In particular, I will highlight how the 'trauma' of the Holocaust has influenced collective identity in these countries and how writers have either affirmed or deconstructed narratives of history and identity which have emerged since World War Two. To understand fully the various narratives which have developed, it is important to refer to the artistic achievements both of the victims of National Socialism and the survivors whose accounts are often at variance with narratives typical of Israeli and German writers. Chapter One, therefore, is a detailed account of how those who were experiencing Nazism first hand interpreted their situation in contrast to how those in exile or in Palestine emplotted the atrocity stories from Europe. The rest of the thesis charts how narratives of the Holocaust are subtly re-figured according to political Zeitgeist - what Walter Benjamin called Jetztzeit, the blasting of history out of its continuum to service contemporary political needs. This thesis aims to show that narratives and representations of the Holocaust both in Israel, Germany and Austria mutate according to contemporary events. Today, whilst it is generally agreed that there is no such thing as an objective, concrete past, and that historic events are called upon to help interpret current complexities, the Holocaust in Israel and the Germanies has been consciously deployed to shape interpretations of present considerations by revisionism. This has caused consternation among many in the Jewish community who assert that, as the Holocaust is a unique event, to use it for analogous discussion denigrates the memory of the victims. Others maintain that the Holocaust is but one example of human depravity and holds many lessons for the contemporary world. This thesis asks whether the Holocaust can be viewed simultaneously both as a typical and an atypical event without denigrating the victims or generating simplistic analogies.

This thesis argues that theatricalization is an appropriate paradigm to employ in a political reassessment of the historical avant-garde moments of Futurism, Dada and Surrealism. Through an analysis of the performativity and theatricality of the manifestos and manifestations of these successive avant-garde, it is suggested that each avant-garde moment self-dramatizes a destructive character. An argument is then developed that the destructive character of the avant-garde demonstrates and displays a libertarian-barbarian dialectic which emerges from within the discourses of anarchism and nihilism, in particular from Michael Bakunin’s maxim: ‘the passion for destruction is a creative passion, too’. The destructive character of the avant-garde is manifest most clearly in the manifestos which announce and perform a desire for the destruction of the institution of art and the re-integration of art and life, as advanced by Peter Bürger. Identifying a parallel between the discourses of theatricalization and aestheticization in Symbolist drama, I argue that the paradigm of theatricalization necessitates a critical re-assessment of the polarity which Walter Benjamin advances, between the aestheticization of politics and the politicization of art. Further, it is suggested, we must also re-examine the polarity which Bürger asserts between Aestheticism and the avant-garde with respect to the question of autonomy in art. Thus, from Bakunin’s initial breakdown of the opposition between destruction/creation we embark upon a re-examination of the polarity between key terms of the avant-garde: libertarian/barbarian; incarnation/integration; aestheticization/politicization; theatricality/performativity. The theatricalization of avant-garde manifesto is then articulated in the context of Habermas’ study of the structural transformation of the public sphere from feudalism (theatricalization) to capitalism (literalization).

The National Theatre of Scotland is a unique, non building-based, commissioning and producing cultural institution, established in the wake of the devolution of the Scottish Parliament. This thesis explores how the NTS responded to its ‘national’ remit within the context of both post devolution Scotland and an increasingly globalized world in which the significance and boundaries of the ‘nation’ are often ambiguous and contested. The public sphere in the United Kingdom has always held a tension between the interweaving national identities of its four constituent nations. However, the constitutional changes since 1999, have allowed the possibility for a more distinctive public sphere to be defined in Scotland. This thesis examines how the NTS, over a relatively short period of time, has played a role in helping to mark out and define the nature of this new national public sphere and argues that the company was particularly well placed to accommodate and reflect heterogeneous imagining’s of identity and respond to contemporary expressions of belonging. However, the thesis also charts changes to the company during these early years and, most significantly, notes the potential effect that the change from arms length to direct government funding might have on the company’s long-term development. The thesis argues that direct funding aligns the arts too closely to political agendas rather than supporting artistic freedom and expression. As such, rather than helping to mark out a democratically representative and critical public sphere in Scotland, the NTS is in danger of becoming entangled by competing conceptions and perceptions of nationhood in Scotland.

The endemic presence of digital technology is responsible for numerous changes in contemporary Western societies. This study examines the role of multimedia within the field of theatre studies, with particular focus on the theory and practice of theatre design and education. In the cross-disciplinary literature review, I investigate such primary elements of contemporary media as interactivity, immersion, integration and hyper-textuality, and explore their characteristics in the performing arts before and during the digital epoch. I also discuss various IT applications that transformed the way we experience, learn and co-create our cultural heritage. In order to illustrate how computer-generated environments could change the way we perceive and deliver cultural values, I explore a suite of rapidly-developing communication and computer-visualization techniques, which enable reciprocal exchange between viewers, theatre performances and artefacts. I analyze novel technology-mediated teaching techniques that attempt to provide a new media platform for visually-enhanced information transfer. My findings indicate that the recent changes towards the personalization of knowledge delivery and also towards student-centered study and e-learning necessitated the transformation of the learners from passive consumers of digital products to active and creative participants in the learning experience. The analysis of questionnaires and two case studies (the THEATRON and the VA projects) demonstrate the need for further development of digital-visualization techniques, especially for studying and researching scenographic artefacts. As a practical component of this thesis, I have designed and developed the Set-SPECTRUM educational project, which aims to strengthen the visual skills of the students, ultimately enabling them to use imagery as a creative tool, and as a means to analyze theatrical performances and artefacts. The 3D reconstruction of Norman Bel Geddes' set for The Divine Comedy, first of all, enables academic research of the artefact, exposing some hitherto unknown design-limitations in the original set-model, and revealing some construction inconsistencies; secondly, it contributes to educational and creative practices, offering an innovative way to learn about scenography. And, thirdly, it fills a gap in the history of the Western theatre design. This study attempts to show that when translated into digital language, scenographic artefacts become easily retrievable and highly accessible for learning and research purposes. Therefore, the development of such digital products should be encouraged, but care should also be taken to provide the necessary training for users, in order to realize the applications' full potential.

This thesis examines why non-profit theatres in Britain have become increasingly involved in educational work since the 1990s, from an historical and institutional perspective. With an assumption that this sector-wide organisational change has been caused by a shift in institutional environments of the arts sector, the thesis proposes an institutional framework, where three different institutional logics - artworld, market and policy - coexist and tend to dominate the institutional context at different times. Using this theoretical framework, the thesis demonstrates that arts policy and management during the post-war period were shaped by the artworld logic. However, the two decades since 1979 have seen the environments become complicated because the institutional logics of the market and policy gained currency. Criticising the limitation of marketisation theory that has so far dominated most analyses of recent cultural policy, the thesis sheds light on the fact that active intervention by the state has replaced the arm’s length principle and the arts - especially arts education and participatory arts activities - are increasingly used for explicit social policy objectives. This phenomenon is defined as ‘politicisation’ of the arts. The rapid growth of educational work since the 1990s is conceptualised as an organisational adaptation of theatres to such environments. The case study of four English theatres demonstrates that although the theatres have expanded education under unprecedented political pressure, they also try to implicitly resist external intervention and to maximise autonomy. This implies that politicisation is a complicated process of institutional change: whilst new rules, norms and expectations have been developed under the policy logic, the sector’s romantic view of the arts has been reformulated and old ways of working have persisted. Thus, the recent institutional change in the non-profit arts sector is better understood as an integration of different institutional logics, not as colonisation of the arts world by the market or politics. In these dynamics environments, the non-profit theatre can reinvent itself as a creative educator and social impact generator without fundamental transformation in its artistic and management sides.

The Guénégaud theatre was in operation in Paris from 1673 to 1680 - from shortly after Molière's death to the foundation of the Comedie-Frangaise. Although the first home of both the Paris Opera and the Comedie-Frangaise, the Guénégaud has attracted little attention, and no previous study has been devoted entirely to it, despite the fact that the Guénégaud account books are preserved in the Archives of the Comedie-Francaise. These have provided a wealth of information on the day-to-day running of a seventeenth-century French theatre and the preparation of productions. What is more, a study of the records of ticket sales they contain has been found to make possible not only an analysis of the tastes and, to a certain extent, the composition of the Guénégaud's audiences, but also a reconstruction of the theatre building itself. In 1673, the Guénégaud company was in a highly vulnerable position. Just seven years later, however, it was so powerful and in possession of a theatre so well-equipped, - that it was the ancient and prestigious Hotel de Bourgogne company that was closed down and its actors transferred to the Guénégaud to form the Comedie-Francaise. This thesis, therefore, further examines how the Guénégaud company succeeded in effecting this reversal in their fortunes. One major contributing factor was the Guénégaud company's series of machine plays by Thomas Corneille and Donneau De Vise. Concentrating on Circe, the first and most successful of these, as a single representative production, this thesis, is also, therefore, a study of the adaptation and final demise of a genre where music was of primary importance in the face of implacable opposition from Lully, desirous of protecting his privilege on the production of operas. Finally, the thesis attempts to show that if there is any justification in the tradition by which the Comedie-Frangaise is known as the 'Maison de Moliere', this is entirely due to the Guénégaud company's success in ensuring their own survival and, in so doing, maintaining and transmitting their inheritance from Moliere's troupe, and that this same survival was in no small part thanks to the machine plays of Thomas Corneille.

My thesis interrogates the complex and indeterminate nature of Taiwanese identity as it is articulated in post- I 980s Taiwanese theatre productions. I argue that Taiwanese identity is negotiated in a 'diasporic space' that has manifestations through cultural hybridity, spatio-temporal disruption and homing in travelling. Initially, I establish the conceptual framework of diasporic space through critical investigations of the sociality of modem diaspora, post-dolonial notions of cultural difference and hybridity (Homi Bhabha) and space-time dynamics as elaborated in Foucault's conception of heterotopias. The subsequent chapters consist of performance analyses and provide dramatic illustrations of these theories as they are imbricated in diasporic space. Subsequently, I examine the appropriation of Beijing Opera aesthetics in a Taiwanese context, and argue that it engenders a hybrid identity by defying the totalising force of Chineseness. I also consider how national space and its attendant essentialist identity is attempted via a sacralised home of homogeneous constitution, thus arguing for the impossibility of identifying a stable national cultural identity due to infracultural differences in the diasporic community of. Taiwan. To fully account for the lived experience of the Taiwanese, I then explore the dialectic force of history that shapes the cultural imaginary of home and identity in ten theatrical productions. I argue that, rather than being bound to a fixed home/land, Taiwanese identity is mediated in the spatio-temporal difference between the homes in the past in China and the present in Taiwan. In addition, I examine the internal conflicts in present-day Taiwan that are unfolded through stories depicting everyday life. The Taiwanese constantly travel in and out of the present locality, and each journey in its own particularity touches upon broader cultural politics of locating home identity. Probing the various manners in which these chosen performances locate Taiwanese identity, I evaluate their achievement in presenting a multiplicity of theatrical possibilities and alternative perspectives of cultural reality that helps envision a 'new' 'diasporic' understanding of homing through travelling, inhabiting shifting moments and movements when/where identity is always being re-configured.

Whilst in recent years the study of nineteenth-century popular theatre and culture has expanded into the music hall, fairgrounds and 'minor' theatres, embracing melodrama and spectacle, the Victorian pantomime has attracted little attention. More especially, the widespread and dynamic productions of the English provincial theatres have been largely excluded in discussions that repeatedly focus on the London stage. My thesis is centred on the Theatres Royal of Nottingham and Birmingham, two towns sited in the English Midlands, but with markedly different population sizes, socioeconomic structures and national status. My argument, however, is not predicated on comparison but rather on siting the pantomimes within the very specific local contexts of each town. The relationship between the pantomime and the town engages with a notion of audience, identifiable through textual and promotional materials. The argument in my thesis moves from an overview of production styles at the two theatres to a specific analysis of the financing and promotion of the pantomime at Nottingham in the mid- 1860s. Using extant financial records, I have established how the pantomime was produced in times of local hardship, and how a production affected by low expenditure and failing revenue was promoted to its potential audiences. The emphases of advertising and the promotional techniques engaged by the theatre managements, together with those of the local newspapers also enable a reassessment of the role of the pantomime author. The traditional understanding of authorship as related to ownership of the text is reconsidered in relation to the role the pantomime author played in the promotion of the production, and his real and construed relationship to the theatre and town for which he was writing. Moreover, the available empirical evidence has served to foreground the pantomime text as an expression of local concerns and political interests that were particular to each town and displayed an acute awareness of issues of regional identity and status.