Zugl.: Düsseldorf, Univ., Diss., 2007

Frankfurt (Main), Univ., Diss., 2009

Zugl.: Düsseldorf, University, Diss., 2007.

No description available.

A self-analysis of the work of a theater director on the play Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard. Through a detailed retelling of all aspects of the production—research, design, script work, rehearsals, and performance—artist strengths and weaknesses are identified, and lessons are articulated that can be applied to future productions of Arcadia, and subsequent work of the director.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Carrie Sandahl, Florida State University, School of Theatre. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed May 20, 2005). Includes bibliographical references.

L’œuvre dramatique de Tom Stoppard est souvent considérée comme caractéristique du postmoderne. Les techniques d’écriture qui régissent le texte théâtral de Stoppard, étudiés dans cette thèse, participent à une véritable mise en scène de l’écriture. Ils sont aussi, selon nous, un moyen de détourner et parodier les codes du postmoderne. Collages, fragments et réécriture, caractéristiques de l’œuvre de Stoppard, traduisent aussi une vision patrimoniale de la littérature, et permettent une approche originale et critique du postmodernisme, renouvelant ainsi le discours sur le moderne. La présente étude se propose tout d’abord de montrer comment, à travers les références aux œuvres picturales de Magritte et Duchamp, Stoppard met en scène le signe. Puis, elle cherche à mettre en évidence la manière dont Stoppard utilise le collage et l’emprunt musical pour construire et structurer certaines de ses pièces. Elle envisage enfin le collage comme l’expression d’une herméneutique littéraire et philosophique, en examinant notamment l’influence de l’écriture de James Joyce sur le processus scripturaire du dramaturge. Le théâtre, seule forme d’expression artistique qui peut emprunter à tous les autres arts (Beaux-Arts, musique et littérature), est le lieu idéal où se déploient le foisonnement, la complexité et la richesse de l’écriture de Stoppard. Mais l’utilisation de citations et de fragments n’implique pas la fragmentation du sens : le théâtre de Stoppard, loin d’être l’expression d’une vision détachée du monde, propose aussi une véritable réflexion ontologique et politique sur notre société. / Tom Stoppard’s plays have often been viewed as the epitome of the postmodern. The writing techniques which inform Stoppard’s dramatic texts and which are studied in the present thesis play an essential part in the way in which the playwright stages his own writing process. This study also postulates that those techniques stand as a means of subverting and parodying the codes of the postmodern. The collages, fragments and rewriting which inform Stoppard’s works, reflect a patrimonial conception of literature and allow for an original approach and critique of postmodernism thus renewing the discourse on the modern. While considering the various references to the works of Magritte and Duchamp, the present study seeks to unveil the way in which Stoppard stages the sign. It will then shed light on the way in which Stoppard uses musical collages and quotations, which dot the playwright’s work, to shape and construct some of his plays. Finally, this dissertation will envisage collage as the expression of literary and philosophical hermeneutics as it examines James Joyce’s crucial influence on the playwright’s writing technique. Theatre stands probably as the only form of art which can borrow from all the other forms of art (painting, sculpture, music and literature). As such, it is the ideal locus for Stoppard’s subtle and complex writing techniques to proliferate. However, using quotations and fragments does not necessarily imply a fragmentation of meaning. Far from conveying a detached view of the world, Stoppard’s dramatic works provide the audience with an ontological and political thought-provoking view on our contemporary society.

Radio drama developed as a genre as new media proliferated and challenged the cultural primacy of print. The methods of production and distribution and the literary genres that developed during the age of print provided models for radio playwrights to follow but also cultural forces for them to challenge. This dissertation considers these dual influences of print on the radio drama of four playwrights: Orson Welles, Dylan Thomas, Samuel Beckett, and Tom Stoppard. Each playwright “remediates” the printed page in radio plays by adapting or evoking the form of various literary texts, including novels (Welles), travel writing (Thomas), diaries and transcribed speech (Beckett), and historical writing (Stoppard). By representing written texts in an electronic, primarily oral medium, these authors examined the status of literary expression in an age of ascendant electronic media. Welles’s The War of the Worlds and Huckleberry Finn, Thomas’s Under Milk Wood and other broadcasts, Beckett’s Rough for Radio II and Embers, and Stoppard’s In the Native State highlight defining features of the print tradition and reveal how practices of writing and “reading” changed in the radio environment. These plays suggest that radio prompted writers to reconsider the literary author’s creative role, the text’s stability, and the audience’s interaction with the work. “Radio Texts” ultimately argues, therefore, that radio drama’s significance transcends its place in media history and dramatic criticism; the works I examine also point to radio plays’ important role in authors’ re-evaluation of literary expression in a changing twentieth-century media ecology. / text

This study scrutinizes parody in Stoppard&rsquo / s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound, and Dogg&rsquo / s Hamlet, Cahoot&rsquo / s Macbeth. After a historical survey of the definitions of parody with a stress on its definitions in our era, this study puts forward its definition of parody which is mainly based on Bakhtin&rsquo / s dialogic criticism. Parody then can be defined as a deliberate imitation or transformation of a socio-cultural product that takes a stance towards its original subject of imitation. Based on the original subject of parody, three kinds of parody are distinguished: genre, specific, and discourse. Following determining the kinds of parody that each of the aforementioned plays exhibits, this study expounds how Stoppard applies parody of the characters, plots, and themes in relation to their original subjects of parody. Later, a close critical study of these parodies will be conducted to elaborate on their functions and significances in each of the plays, their relations with and efficacy in the thematic context of the plays, the techniques used to achieve them, and how far they are applied in line with or opposite to the post-modern&rsquo / s ideas.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1987.