Real Theatre: Essays in Experience (Theatre and Performance Theory)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 12/27/2018
EAN 9781107186590, ISBN10: 1107186595
Hardcover, 246 pages, 23.3 x 16.1 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Theatre is often said to offer unique insights into the nature of reality, but this obscures the reality of theatre itself. In Real Theatre, Paul Rae takes a joined-up approach to the realities of theatre to explain why performances take the forms they do, and what effects they have. Drawing on examples ranging from Phantom of the Opera and Danny Boyle's Frankenstein, to the performances of the Wooster Group and arthouse director Tsai Ming-liang, he shows how apparently discrete theatrical events emerge from dynamic and often unpredictable social, technical and institutional assemblages. These events then enter a process of cultural circulation that, as Rae explains, takes many forms: fleeting conversations, the mercurial careers of theatrical characters and the composite personae of actors, and high-profile products like the Hollywood movie Birdman. The result is a real theatre that speaks of, and to, the idiosyncratic and cumulative experience of every theatre participant.
Introduction
the reality of theatre
Part I
1. Realtheatrick
material theatres and ordinary magic
2. That's entertainment
theatre and experience
Part II
3. Theatre talk
the poetics of theatre at a distance
4. Peak performance and the construction of theatrical truths
5. Infratheatre
what theatre is when it's not quite theatre
6. The theatre assembled
technical theatre in performance
7. Theatre people
the actor and the unaccommodated man
Conclusion
real theatre studies?