This thesis examines the reinvention and resurgence of the monologue as a contemporary performance mode. It focuses on four pioneering practitioners: Laurie Anderson, Spalding Gray, Karen Finley and Anna Deavere Smith. The study reviews historical developments in monologue and analyses contemporary innovations made to the form. It also responds to debate on the use of postmodern aesthetic techniques in performance, as a means of critically engaging with and commentating on Western, specifically American, culture and politics. The hypothesis of this study is that monologue, as it is examined in this work, is a biopolitical form. It is biopolitical, as this analysis will show, in the sense that it is a linguistic, communicational and creative response to the conditions of global capitalism in the West. The study argues that the term monologue is increasingly inadequate to the discussion of these new forms of solo speech and performance and proffers the term “post-monologue” as a means of furthering consideration of the monologue beyond the terms of current understandings. It opens the way towards future manifestations of the form that offer critically effective, and affective, commentary on world events.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/245498 |
| Creators | Paterson, Edward Reuben Burke |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
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