In theatre scholarship, the event of the on-stage accident is a fairly neglected area of research. Aside from brief archival detailing of some of the more tragic events, scholars have not approached the accidents from a theoretical or historiographical position. Many, I surmise, find little of interest in an on-stage accident due to its lack of aesthetic purpose or intentionality. In this project, I focus on those neglected accidents and, more specifically, accidents that take place due to a violent failure of theatrical convention. I discuss three specific moments where a theatre convention established to concretize the world of the play for the audience turns violent before a live audience. I detail the apparatus of the convention and how it worked, as well as how it violently failed. Additionally, I discuss the cultural and material make-up of the event.
My study begins with the recent on stage death of KÀ performer Sarah Guillot-Guyard in Las Vegas and a review of the terminology and scholarship pertinent to this study. I then focus on three discrete events/theatre conventions: nineteenth century gas light and the fatal accidents caused by its use, the recent Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark and accidental injuries caused by prop weapons used during stage combat. What separates these conventions from an average theatre accident is their reliance on a technology in establishing the illusion of violence or danger. In my analysis I examine the phenomenology at play when a violent convention actually causes injury to the performer in front of an audience.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-07112016-141521 |
| Date | 02 August 2016 |
| Creators | Reynolds, Jeremy Matthew |
| Contributors | Porter, Lance, Walsh, Shannon, Euba, Femi, Fletcher, John |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-07112016-141521/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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