The following is a document outlining the process of directing a production of the stage play A Dybbuk as part of Theatre at UBC’s 2007/2008 season. My main objective in directing this piece of work was to explore the idea of theatre as a subject of memory and remembrance, of exploring how our knowledge of the past, present and future influence the way a work of theatre is presented and perceived, and of how history plays a role in how a work of theatre is transformed through the visions of other artists. The process included a lengthy research period in which I examined the origins of the original S. Asnky script of The Dybbuk, comparing it to other later translations and adaptations, including the adaptation by Tony Kushner which was used for this production. The life of the playwright and the world of the play, historically and culturally were also researched. This investigation is outlined in Chapter One. This is followed by a detailed Directorial Analysis of the script which is outlined in Chapter Two. A journal chronicling the entire process spanning April of 2007 to March of 2008, including reflections on my research discoveries, inspirations from a variety of sources, and the trials and tribulations of both pre-production and rehearsals are outlined in Chapter Three. A final chapter of reflection and assessment on the entire process and thoughts on the final outcomes are outlined in Chapter Four.

The following is a document outlining the process of directing a production of the stage play A Dybbuk as part of Theatre at UBC’s 2007/2008 season. My main objective in directing this piece of work was to explore the idea of theatre as a subject of memory and remembrance, of exploring how our knowledge of the past, present and future influence the way a work of theatre is presented and perceived, and of how history plays a role in how a work of theatre is transformed through the visions of other artists. The process included a lengthy research period in which I examined the origins of the original S. Asnky script of The Dybbuk, comparing it to other later translations and adaptations, including the adaptation by Tony Kushner which was used for this production. The life of the playwright and the world of the play, historically and culturally were also researched. This investigation is outlined in Chapter One. This is followed by a detailed Directorial Analysis of the script which is outlined in Chapter Two. A journal chronicling the entire process spanning April of 2007 to March of 2008, including reflections on my research discoveries, inspirations from a variety of sources, and the trials and tribulations of both pre-production and rehearsals are outlined in Chapter Three. A final chapter of reflection and assessment on the entire process and thoughts on the final outcomes are outlined in Chapter Four.

The following is a document outlining the process of directing a production of the stage play A Dybbuk as part of Theatre at UBC’s 2007/2008 season. My main objective in directing this piece of work was to explore the idea of theatre as a subject of memory and remembrance, of exploring how our knowledge of the past, present and future influence the way a work of theatre is presented and perceived, and of how history plays a role in how a work of theatre is transformed through the visions of other artists. The process included a lengthy research period in which I examined the origins of the original S. Asnky script of The Dybbuk, comparing it to other later translations and adaptations, including the adaptation by Tony Kushner which was used for this production. The life of the playwright and the world of the play, historically and culturally were also researched. This investigation is outlined in Chapter One. This is followed by a detailed Directorial Analysis of the script which is outlined in Chapter Two. A journal chronicling the entire process spanning April of 2007 to March of 2008, including reflections on my research discoveries, inspirations from a variety of sources, and the trials and tribulations of both pre-production and rehearsals are outlined in Chapter Three. A final chapter of reflection and assessment on the entire process and thoughts on the final outcomes are outlined in Chapter Four. / Arts, Faculty of / Theatre and Film, Department of / Graduate

Zugl.: Heidelberg, Univ., Diss., 2006.

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-57).

This dissertation combines performance analysis, rhetorical criticism, and psychoanalytical theory to analyze three performance “texts” as sites of haunting in post-9/11 America: Tony Kushner’s 2001 U.S. debut of Homebody/Kabul, the Broadway musical Wicked, and ABC’s television drama Lost. It contributes a nuanced, theorized reading of the civil implications of post-9/11 popular American culture as “more than memory” by demonstrating how these performances suggested “what might be” in ways that subverted Bush’s responses to the attacks. The first chapter reads Homebody/Kabul against the national addresses delivered by Bush in the first weeks after the attacks and argue that the 2001 New York Theatre Workshop performance created a space for audiences to reconsider the version of “mourning” encouraged by the Bush administration. The type of mourning modeled/enabled by Homebody/Kabul, I assert, is different from that against which Derrida warns. Rather than “silencing ghosts” (Gunn 82) through the integration of loss, Homebody/Kabul makes a space for conversing with, and models living with, ghosts. The second chapter argues that the Wicked’s Ozians are stuck in a state of melancholia, refusing to speak to/with the ghost of Elphaba. Because they refuse to reckon with Elphaba, they literally finish exactly where they began—with “No One Mourn[ing] the Wicked.” By reading Wicked against the celebratory rhetoric of the Bush administration after declaring “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq, we can understand the way the United States as a nation was (and may still be, in 2010) haunted by the Bush administration's failure to lead the nation in mourning effectively and ethically and by its incessant rhetoric of evil. The third chapter advocates for Lost as a hauntological reckoning with 9/11 that models ethical witnessing as a potentially generative meeting of human beings across cultures at the site of trauma. An alternative to the fear that the Bush administration encouraged leading up to Lost’s premiere and through its final season, ethical witnessing as modeled on Lost suggests that civilization stands to thrive where difference is honored—and risks toppling into chaos where the alternative “us against them” mentality (Other anxiety) prevails. / text

This study brings the insights of Slavoj Žižek’s Lacan-inspired approach to bear upon a series of influential 20th century plays and their engagement with what Lacan calls the Real. The plays to be explored share a focus on experiences, events or encounters which transcend, exceed, disrupt, and in some cases shatter characters’ normal, familiar realities. Examined through the lens of Žižek, these confrontations with the sublime and the fantastic reveal a crucial relation to the plays’ contemporary contexts, prompting us to “look awry” upon the dynamics of our own symbolically-regulated reality and the ever-changing and precarious nature of our relation to it. Similarly crucial is the relation of the Lacanian Real to our theatrical forms and modes of perception in the theatre. In staging “encounters with the Real,” these plays prompt us simultaneously to explore the ways in which the Real operates —and “appears” — in our own theatrical experience, ensnaring our gaze and the force of our desire. The study offers a Žižekian approach to works including Peter Shaffer’s Equus, John Mighton’s Possible Worlds, S. An-sky’s The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds, Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker, Tony Kushner’s The Illusion, and Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s Enigma Variations.

This study brings the insights of Slavoj Žižek’s Lacan-inspired approach to bear upon a series of influential 20th century plays and their engagement with what Lacan calls the Real. The plays to be explored share a focus on experiences, events or encounters which transcend, exceed, disrupt, and in some cases shatter characters’ normal, familiar realities. Examined through the lens of Žižek, these confrontations with the sublime and the fantastic reveal a crucial relation to the plays’ contemporary contexts, prompting us to “look awry” upon the dynamics of our own symbolically-regulated reality and the ever-changing and precarious nature of our relation to it. Similarly crucial is the relation of the Lacanian Real to our theatrical forms and modes of perception in the theatre. In staging “encounters with the Real,” these plays prompt us simultaneously to explore the ways in which the Real operates —and “appears” — in our own theatrical experience, ensnaring our gaze and the force of our desire. The study offers a Žižekian approach to works including Peter Shaffer’s Equus, John Mighton’s Possible Worlds, S. An-sky’s The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds, Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker, Tony Kushner’s The Illusion, and Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s Enigma Variations.

While the gothic in its various interpretations is well established in contemporary culture, the traditional form, rooted in its late eighteenth century literary conventions, would seem to have little relevance for theatre audiences today. A reappraisal of the convention's foundations, however, offers the playwright opportunities to explore new narratives in which the tradition can be re-inflected in the present. An analysis of the writing of my play Burn, which presents as a contemporary family drama, will demonstrate how the narrative can be structured with deliberate reference to the established tropes of the classic gothic mode. It will be shown that a re-engagement with the tradition in concert with new interpretations of the gothic can reinvigorate the form as a mode of playwriting practice.