Thesis (MDram)--University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis--Göteborg. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. 188-221).

Thesis--University of Wisconsin. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record.

Thesis--Göteborg. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Bibliography: p. 188-221.

This thesis attempts to develop a pedagogy for devised theatre conceived of as a praxis. Part One explores the status and history of both devised theatre and theatre pedagogy, particularly in the UK but also in other contexts. In doing so, it attempts to demonstrate the multitude of ways in which both devised theatre and the pedagogy of drama, theatre and performance have been conceived. Part Two goes on to look at three frames through which devised theatre might be conceptualised: contemporary theories of language, creativity and social practice. With a particular focus on the theories of Jacques Rancière, I suggest that each of these offers a potential vision of art as a realm which can exist at a remove from everyday life, whilst still functioning within structures that indicate its social basis. The frames each contain a focus on process rather than only focusing on a finished artistic product. They also each suggest simultaneous reflection and action. In the final part of the thesis I map these three notions, particularly that of social practice, onto theories of praxis. I suggest that the notion of praxis offers a vision of what a pedagogy for devised theatre might look like, recognising the importance of process as well as product; reflection as well as action. Finally I use the Chicago based performance company Goat Island, who made work between 1987 and 2009, as a case study of what devised theatre praxis might look like through a discussion of their process, performance and pedagogy.

This thesis contends that current critical appreciation of Clifford Odets as a dramatist is incomplete and that, contrary to the general view, Odets, a creator of living language and unforgettable dialogue, did make a significant and lasting contribution to the contemporary American theatre. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to demonstrate with what creative skill and with what theatrical precision Odets uses the dramatic language of his plays.

Comparative literature on French influence on Goethe is predominantly concerned with Rousseau. In seeking to redress that imbalance, this thesis offers the first comprehensive study of Diderot's and Goethe's art theory. It treats that theory as a whole, and places it in the context of the social and philosophical thought which preceded it. The first part of the thesis studies Diderot's and Goethe's thought on the visual arts and the theatre. That thought reveals different attempts to assert, through the creativity of the artist, man's dominance over nature. This first part also shows that the unrecognised differences between Diderot and Goethe lie less in their discussion of the production of art than they do in their discussion of the beholder. The second part opens with a study of Rousseau. Rousseau's concern to reinstitute in civil society the unmediated exercise of the will assumed from the state of nature grounds a suspicion of the imagination at odds with the art theory discussed in part one. Diderot's unique contribution to the natural law tradition rests, however, on the understanding of the imagination developed within his art theory. For its part, Goethe's art theory of the 1790s provides remarkable affinities between the contemplation of the object of art, and the harmony between the senses and the understanding sought in Kant's and Schiller's aesthetics. Despite such synthesis, the final chapter identifies a normativism in Goethe's later art theory more in keeping with the absolutist tradition before him, but which does not obscure the similarities between his thought and Diderot's. The thesis closes with a brief consideration of the broader relevance of such a comparison.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Boston University

2017 marked the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China after 156 years of British colonial rule. As the ensuing chapters will show, the rapid socio-political changes which have overtaken Hong Kong during those two decades, and the question of how the city is now to view its cultural identity in relation both to its former colonial master and to the People's Republic into which it has officially been subsumed, are nowhere more richly reflected than in the Shakespearean productions staged by local repertory companies since the handover. Adopting a cultural materialist reading in this neocolonial context, my thesis examines post-1997 Hong Kong Shakespeare that comment variously on the identity of the city through staging sinicized, aestheticized and socio-politicised versions of the plays. My introduction contextualizes Hong Kong's position on the current intellectual map of Asian Shakespeare, arguing that Hong Kong Shakespeare should not be subsumed under the heading of Chinese Shakespeare. Chapter One discusses Richard Ho's Hamlet: Sword of Vengeance, which though premièred in the colonial era was later tellingly restaged in Hong Kong and in England after the handover. Chapter Two analyses the configuration of China as an aesthetic metaphor in Tang Shu-wing's Titus Andronicus 2.0 and Macbeth. Chapter Three discusses the emergence of a new Hong Kong identity in Hardy Tsoi's Julius Caesar and Shamshuipo Lear. Chapter Four establishes the necessity of considering Hong Kong's counter discourse to China's centrism in Jimmy Lee's Post-The Taming of the Shrew. Sandwiched between the colonial and the neocolonial, Hong Kong Shakespeare generates an independent narrative of its own through struggle and cultural negotiation.

The Royal Shakespeare Company's 1970 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Peter Brook and designed by Sally Jacobs, is the most influential production of Shakespeare in the twentieth century. Indeed its design licenced audiences, critics, academics, and practitioners to visualize the setting of the play as something more than a staid palace in Athens and a sylvan forest of actual shrubbery. Incorporating a wide range of archival material including the previously unknown full-length recording of that production, I trace how the scenography for the 1970 production has shaped institutional trends of designing Dream at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, both visually and conceptually. In the six main stage RSC productions that followed, those directors and designers all responded to the famous white-box design to varying degrees, highlighting trends within the institution. In 1989, an artistic movement in stage design began, as practitioners at the RSC, instead of avoiding the innovative box set, boldly appropriated the design and production concepts from the 1970 production. This history of designing Dream at the RSC and the critics and academics who write on this topic, have not only shaped the modern impression of Brook and Jacobs’s production, they have noticeably transformed it.