Acts of Dramaturgy

A case study of one specific substantial three-part project inspired by the work of William Shakespeare. Three interconnected performances that interrogate roles in the theatre-making process, along with essays that contextualize the themes and approaches of the work, serve as provocations for the acts of dramaturgy the work entailed, juxtapose new writing and performance writing, and problematize the notion of playtexts.

Taking as their starting point a stage direction or a moment in the narrative that is not the main focus, the playtexts recontextualize, deconstruct and disorientate the classic text within a landscape that is more polarized, free from the text and inherently and explicitly aware of its own theatricality. The work negotiates the ever-shifting relationship between the text and its performance, the performers and their audience, whilst acknowledging that Shakespeare often employed a play-within-a-play as a device, what we now call a meta-theatrical mode of representation.

The three playtexts are The Beginning, an interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Middle, a deconstruction of Hamlet, and The End, triggered by a stage direction from The Winter’s Tale. Shown together as The Trilogy, each play asks the audience to enter a world where a performance can be a rehearsal, text can be both script and set … and they are always aware of where the fire exits are. The playtexts are presented with essays from a range of contributors that reflect on their poetics, themes and concerns in relation to dramaturgy. 

Brings together scholarship and creative work, places them in dialogue with each other and does so from a wide range of perspectives: from those involved in the process, those in the margins of that process and those encountering the works without having been part of that process. The particular strengths of this challenging but accessible book are in the ways it places these perspectives in conversation with and through dramaturgy, and contributes a dialogue about making and reflecting text and performance. 

A rich and thought-provoking text that has the potential to move the dialogue on dramaturgy forward both among practitioners and academics. It is a fresh, intellectually invigorating read; the change of perspective and the playful structure that brings a recognisable five-act dramatic structure and academic elaboration together keeps readers focused and...read more...