Thesis (MDram (Drama))—University of Stellenbosch, 2005. / The claim that theatre theorists and critics have historically considered the dramatic text a more important part of theatre than the performance is a prominent theme of 20th century theatre theory. This claim was made in various ways, by different theorists in divergent critical contexts. A brief survey of relevant statements by some of these theorists reveals that different things are meant by this claim and that it relates to a range of important critical issues, for example how theatre is defined, how elements within theatre are ranked, authority and autonomy in theatre practice and theory and attempts to control the processes of interpretation in the theatre. We also see that post-structuralist theatre theorists believe that a majority of statements relating to this claim reflect a logocentric attitude in theatre theory. The aim of this thesis is to determine whether this claim is valid when applied to theatre criticism and theory of a particular period, namely Neo-classicism of the 17th and 18th century. Chapters Two and Three consist of a survey of mainly English and French criticism and theory of this period in the context of some of the general philosophical trends of the era. Chapter Two finds that there is a direct link between the rise of Neo-classicism and the trend in philosophy of system-building and that this informs the dismissive attitude to performance that one finds in this era. In Chapter Three we see that the emergence of new directions in philosophy like empiricism encourages a transformation in the critical attitude to performance. Critics acknowledge the importance of the performance to a far greater extent and in some trends in particular, for example the tentative steps towards Realism and the development of acting theory, we see that critics and theorists are starting to insist that all aspects of staging have to be considered. This is due in part because they are concerned with the integrity of the representation and the intentions of the dramatist, so it does not really mean that the text is not, in this era, considered the most important aspect of theatre after all. Chapter Four discusses more systematically how the issues and questions raised in Chapter One figure in the criticism and theory examined in Chapters Two and Three. This discussion finds that to a large extent the claim investigated in this thesis is valid, but that the respective attitudes to ‘performance’ do reflect different responses to many of the same problems, most specifically problems associated with representation.

This thesis suggests that journalistic theatre criticism is a necessary and vital aspect of the theatre, promoting a healthy theatre community and culture. A healthy theatre community is supported by critics and artists alike, and is one where citizens are excited about the theatre, desiring to participate and engage with it often. It is one where artists and spectators listen, respect, and trust one another, being open to opinions and suggestions that may enhance and improve the theatre community. A healthy theatre community strives to provide theatre that may be multi-faceted in purpose, but allows for opportunities to challenge, uncover, teach, or simply entertain to become magnified, creating transformative experiences within the viewers. In the most utopic state, healthy theatre causes epiphanies that provide glimpses of a better world, one where individuals and societies may know peace. These interactions, with the magic that theatre can bring, may benefit communities on a level ultimately akin to changing the world. Journalistic criticism supports such healthy theatre by increasing interest and viewership, contributing to the theatre's growth, and recognizing ways in which it can utilize its deepest potential. In this thesis, I have performed qualitative and action research in order to evaluate myself as a critic. The thesis also explores how criticism functions in our society and, further, how it should function. I have analyzed various theatrical reviews I have written, and placed them into three sections, each representing a distinct element of theatre criticism. These elements comprise the most fundamental and vital functions of a review that leads to a healthy and improved theatre community. These sections are: “Increasing Promotion,” “Honest and Specific Feedback,” and “Emphasizing Social Justice.” Grouping the reviews into these sections, I will identify how I have contributed to the field of theatre criticism, and to these three realms in particular. I will also be able to recognize and indicate how I can progress as a critic to help support the field of journalistic theatre criticism. This thesis is very insular, personal, and beholden to me, presenting distinct limitations. The value of this work lies primarily in giving aspiring critics the opportunity to learn from my experiences and insights. Above all, this thesis holds value because of the improved critic I have become from completing it, ultimately able to better serve people in my writing for years to come.

While the power dynamics between theatre critics and artists are inevitably imbalanced, as the written word reaches a wider audience and lives much longer than does performance, for feminist artists, the stakes in this relationship are heightened due to the disjunction in identity and ideology that often separates them from mainstream reviewers. This study exposes the gendered nature of theatre criticism, examining the dialogue about feminist theatre in which critics, audiences, and artists are engaged, and identifying its consequences beyond the box office. Case studies are drawn from Nightwood Theatre (1979-present) in Toronto and the Théâtre Expérimental des Femmes (TEF) (1979-1987) in Montreal as well as the work of the TEF’s co-founder Pol Pelletier before 1979 and after 1987 in order to examine key issues in the critical reception of feminist theatre in Canada, including: censorship, the relationship between art and politics, translation, and how artists speak back to their critics. This dissertation argues that the standards employed by mainstream reviewers, while most often not intentionally discriminatory against women, run counter to the central qualities of much feminist theatre. Reviewers’ tendency to separate text and spectacle and their consistent reification of universality and objectivity as critical ideals work in contradistinction to feminist theatre, which has historically placed greater emphasis on performance over written text and foregrounded the particularized nature of identity and experience. Drawing extensively on archival materials and applying a materialist feminist framework to the study of theatre criticism, this dissertation examines the history of feminist theatre and performance in Canada from a different perspective than it has previously been studied and suggests new ways to understand the relationship between critics, artists, and audiences. Through its case studies emerge several practical suggestions about responsible and ethical critical writing that can be applied beyond the scope of feminist theatre.

Theatre criticism has evolved with the advancement of technology and the decline of print journalism. As consumers are given increasing agency by which they can filter the news and reporting they read and occasionally replace it with their own, the idea that a sole voice on a certain topic brandishes more dominance over it than the masses of people involved in its creation and sustainment becomes progressively absurd. Conversely, however, readers rely on theatre critics to make theatergoing decisions for them explicitly because critics are supposed experts on the subject and their opinions are to be respected and observed accordingly. This dichotomy is baffling, but it exists in flux of communication and information that continues to grow as social media develops and becomes ubiquitous. From 1925 onward, Brooks Atkinson, Walter Kerr, Frank Rich, and Ben Brantley have inhabited the same position of chief theatre critic of The New York Times for almost ninety years collectively, yet each critic served very different purposes for their readerships. The prestige that exists around their role did not change over time, but prominence of their publication in popular culture and the utilization and connotation of their criticism did change. The trend is also apparent in the criticism that appears in The New Yorker, particularly because the criticism was not originally consumed for its evaluative and scholarly properties but for its entertainment and cultural magnitudes. The American theatre critic will continue to forge its own prominence in the boundless landscape of the potential of modern technology as it progresses, but ultimately, people will buy tickets, the audience will fill the house, and the show will go on.

Concepts of mental health and normality cannot be understood apart from cultural norms and values. The most significant of cultural constructions that shape our view of madness is gender. Madness has been perceived for centuries metaphorically and symbolically as a feminine illness and continues to be gendered into the twenty-first century. Works of art and literature and psychiatric medicine influence each other as well as our understanding and perception of mental illness. Throughout history, images of mental illness in women send the message that women are weak, dangerous, and require containment. What are the cultural links between femininity and insanity, and how are they represented? Through the lenses of disciplines such as theatre criticism, feminist theory, and psychiatry, this thesis examines the history of madness as a gendered concept and its depictions in art and literature. Additionally, it will explore the representation of female madness in contemporary dramatic literature as compared to the medical model used during the era in which it was written as well as the social and cultural conditions and expectations of the period. The three plays under consideration are: Long Day’s Journey Into Night, written in 1941 by Eugene O’Neill; Fefu and Her Friends, written in 1977 by Maria Irene Fornés; and Next to Normal, produced on Broadway in its current form in 2009 and written and scored by Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitts. None of these plays tell a tidy story with a straightforward ending. In none do treatment facilities offer refuge or health professionals offer answers. Struggling characters resort to drug abuse, fall prey to internalization, or leave treatment all together, having been subjected to enough victimization. The relationship between patient and physician is depicted to be, at best, ambivalent. The themes in these plays illuminate women’s mental illness as an extensive problem with many contributing factors, and the origins of which are quite complex.

The diploma thesis deals with the journalistic work of the theatre critic Josef Träger in the period of the so-called Third Republic (1945-1948). It describes the process of forming attitudes of the journalist towards post-war theatre, presents a representation of the dominant discourse and its transformation during the given period. This thesis focuses on the content analysis of theatre papers, conceived as a kind of "case study", it relates to the basic themes and problems of Czech post-war theatre. It is argued that this approach enables the analyst to pose questions concerning the ideological character of theatre criticism. This thesis discusses ideas of avant-garde creators and theorists, in whose public work it identifies the main source of inspiration for the revolutionary transformation of Czech theatre in 1945. It explores the influence of the Communist Party in the given period, targeted interventions in the Czech media and theatre system and manipulative practices leading to the strengthening of its power in the post-war state. The text also deals with the manifestations of the emerging socio-political disposition in theatre journalism, the form of the reception of post-war hegemonic formation by the journalist, and to structure the results of the analysis into a broader political-media...

La dramaturgie fut la première des ambitions machadiennes. Une oeuvre de poète exalté s’il en est, sobrement contenue pourtant, à la fois discrète en surface et bouillonnante en sourdine. Elle s’impose ainsi harmonieusement classique dans sa facture et dans sa tenue. Sur un plateau réduit à sa plus simple expression et dans une trame débarrassée du superflu, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis confère à la langue théâtrale de ses comédies, une prose poétique et lyrique, une charge nouvelle, faite de vertige, de nervosité, qui déroute et innove dans le paysage esthétique brésilien des années 1860-1870. Sa démarche de dramaturge ne sera guère comprise, voire méjugée, jusqu’à être réduite au silence par l’ensemble de la critique et de l’historiographie du théâtre brésilien du XIXe siècle. Le XXe siècle, à quelques exceptions près, agira de même. C’est ainsi qu’il incombe aux interprètes de porter ce théâtre à la scène, de l’ancrer physiquement et concrètement, sans phrasé affecté ou trop de lyrisme. À cette seule condition, alors, peut-être, pourront sourdre des tempêtes intérieures. Il y a chez cet écrivain, une volonté farouche et affichée de dégager, dans une démarche consciente et mesurée, une synthèse viable pour asseoir durablement la dramaturgie brésilienne de son époque. Tout à l’écriture de ses pièces, il débuta une carrière de critique théâtrale qui hisse l’exercice à un véritable magistère, tant le genre souffrait, avant son passage dans la presse carioca, d’un discrédit et d’un manque de légitimité. Le journaliste, le chroniqueur, livre un corpus hétérogène qui fait de sa critique une activité plus complexe qu’on n’a bien voulu le dire. Elle devient un lieu de tensions paradoxales pour appréhender et penser le théâtre autrement. Partant, Machado – qui n’a pas encore trente ans – conférera à la discipline une autonomie jamais démentie depuis, et confortera sa place sur la scène intellectuelle brésilienne. Cette réflexivité critique, cet engouement pour le théâtre dans toute son étendue, enfin sa maîtrise de l’art dramatique, irradient, contaminent en profondeur l’écriture de ses contes et de ses romans les plus aboutis. Son immense fortune critique, sans contredit, doit tout à l’art du romancier inclassable et indompté – le plus grand prosateur brésilien – qu’il fut et offusque donc, le dramaturge. Il reste que par le théâtre et à travers lui, l’écrivain carioca livre une matière fictionnelle incandescente, labyrinthique, en lien organique avec la matière sociale et historique, en somme, un matériau artistiquement achevé, vibrant, lucidement classique. / Machado de Assis’first ambition ever was Drama. His is the work of an exalted poet, though sober and contained, apparently discreet and inwardly irrepressible: it sets itself as harmoniously classic in facture. On stage and with effective plots, Machado de Assis provided the theatrical language, which he utterly mastered, with a new function, made of the restlessness and excitability that disturbed and renewed Brazilian theatre in the 1860s and 70s from an aesthetical point of view. His approach as a playwright would cause misunderstanding and unsettle contemporary critics of his time, to date. Interprets have to take his theatre onto the stage, to root it physically and concretely, avoiding too much affectation or lyricism. On that condition only will underlying conflicts become apparent. In Machado, there is a definite, aware restlessness in willing to make a viable sum so as to durably lay the foundations of Brazilian dramaturgy of his time. In parallel, the writer started a career as a theatre critic, hoisting the practice to a high office, as indeed the genre had, before him, been widely despised as lacking legitimacy. Here, the journalist and chronicle writer presents a more heterogeneous body of works showing a complexity still overlooked to date: it became a space of paradoxical tensions to understand and think theatre in a different way. Hence, Machado – a young man of not thirty years of age – would provide the discipline with an autonomy still standing today and comfort his own significance in the theatrical and intellectual milieu of his time. Such critical reflexivity, such passion for drama in general and, finally such mastery of dramatic art, would illuminate the writing of his most accomplished short stories and novels. His immense legacy as a critic undeniably owes everything to his talent as an original and wild, untamed novelist – the greatest Brazilian prose writer of all times. The playwright is overshadowed by the novelist. Nevertheless, through his theatre, Machado de Assis presents a live and labyrinthine matter, intimately linked with the social and historical fabric of his time: an artistically though unaccomplished, and far from consensual, material.