On 13/12/05 1:52 AM, "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> It's Artaud who says a play requires a theatre; of course you may well
> say that's prescriptive but a play without players? Players without a
> theatre? I couldn't see the body in any of this conversation.
>
> OTOH, if it's the dead-hand of Shakespeare you're after getting, don't
> let me stop you.
Hi Roger
The body is there as soon as you talk about players, the implications of
utterance. Of course you can have players without theatre - I've seen a
couple of extraordinary street performances in my time, or you can think of
Brook's peregrinations through Africa. Of course you can have a play
without players - the puppet theatre that Kleist and Kafka and Artaud and
others spoke about, though personally the most powerful puppet theatre I've
seen is the bun raku, "white" theatre in which the manipulators are visible.
Of course you can have theatre without words (Butoh say or other theatres of
image and movement). And you can even have a play without "drama" - didn't
Tynan call Waiting for Godot a play where nothing happens, twice?
Curious how the "dead hand" of Shakespeare has continued to inspire so much
radical theatre, from Buchner to Pinter to Muller (and poetry - Ron Silliman
not so long ago traced a genealogy in American poetry, from Shakespeare to
Melville to Olson and on...) Of course WS can be killed dead by museum
productions and the barnacles of cultural piety. So can anyone.
Cheers
A
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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