Post Modernism CAPS Content• Background and context: social, political, religious, economic,

artistic, historical, theatrical as relevant to theatre movement• Characteristics: structure and form, language, characters,

themes• Stylistic elements such as: design, setting, costume, lighting,

use of language, characterisation• Staging: performance space, acting style and movement• Difference between Realism and Post-Modern Theatre• Notable playwrights, directors and theatre makers (local and

international)• The influence of Postmodernist Theatre

Post Modernism Have you ever experienced information

overload?

Do you ever feel overwhelmed or anxious

because there are so many choices out there – what to wearwhat music to enjoywhat toothpaste to use?

Do you mistrust anyone who tells you that there is only one way of looking at the world?

Post modernism the bigger picture

Major world events like the Holocaust and

Hiroshima, forced thinkers, artists,

philosophers and ordinary people to ask

questions about reality, authority and

humanity’s role in the world.

Modernism in the 20th century was

characterised by many ideologies and –

isms, all of which claimed to have ‘the

answer’, a system to live by, a grand truth.

Is Postmodernism deconstructs

(takes apart) those ‘truths’ and tries

to make sense of the many

uncertainties, ironies,

contradictions, and multiple points

of view that exist in the world.Is there such a thing as absolute

truth that should determine the way

we see the world and how we

should behave?

Background and context• It is hard to fix it in time

or space, because it is not clear exactly when Modernism ends or Postmodernism begins.

• The movement of Postmodernism began with architecture, as a reactionary movement against the seeming dullness and hostility present in the Modern movement.

The term postmodernism indicates a way of thinking, or even non-thinking, more than it refers to a particular historical period.

Background and context

Postmodern Western theater responds to the multi-cultural, ironic, cynical, and chaotic social, political, philosophical and artistic developments of the last quarter of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century.

It does not view the world as an absurd, meaningless place of existence on the edge of destruction, but rather as a place where meaning and truth are relative and subject to different understandings and interpretations

Post Modernism defined

Postmodern Western theatre serves, mainly, to attack and deconstructs (takes apart) a number of the central ideas often presented in Modernist theatrical productions while highlighting the Postmodern notion of “truth” as ultimately unverifiable. It suggests that it is up to the audience to decide what is and is not “true” in terms of the drama being presented on the stage.It is generally accepted that the Western world remains in the midst of the age of Postmodern theater

Characteristics1. The accepted norms of seeing and representing the world are challenged and disregarded

2. A pastiche of different texts and media forms is used, including the simultaneous use of multiple art or media forms

3. The narrative needs not be complete but can be broken. Uses non-linear storytelling conventions. A postmodern play proceeds in almost any order the playwright wishes to construct, and such time warping no longer seems surprising.

4. Characters are fragmented

5. Each new performance of a theatrical piece is a new Gestalt, a unique spectacle

6. The audience is central to the shared meaning making of the performance process and its members are included in the dialogue of the play.

7. The production exists only in the viewer's mind as what the viewer interprets - nothing more and nothing less. Acknowledgement of a play’s fictionality.

Characteristics continued

8. The rehearsal process in a theatrical production is driven more by shared meaning-making and improvisation, rather than the scripted text.

9. The play steps back from reality to create its own self-conscious atmosphere. This is sometimes referred to as meta-theatre

10. Radical experimentations in language and thought

11. The abandonment of any attempt to replicate reality

12. The deliberate combination of wild humor with terrible tragedy

13. A postmodern play proceeds in almost any order the playwright wishes to construct, and such time warping

14. An audience can expect cross-association and is able to keep several ideas and chronologies in mind at the same time, blending them into a satisfying dramatic experience.

What is pastiche?

The word comes from French, and is used to describe a visual art technique similar to collage

Different texts, images and media forms are pasted together to create one piece

Borrowing, referencing, and layering different texts and images together is a typical feature of Postmodern Drama

Stylistic elementsObjective is to bring attention to the medium and message. Not random and arbitrary but sophisticated rationale/thinking for choices• Design- no prescribed rules on how it should look e.g. sergeant could use

cup that look like a gun from which he drinks. • Setting-use architecture of existing spaces and buildings as context for

performance• Costume-does not have to reflect an era that is presented- it could be

defied, an interpretation (sergeant doesn’t have to wear stereotypical costume but a medal could signify his status, wearing underpants could show his vulnerability

• Lighting-multi-media• Use of language- several genres from tragic to comic, from Elizabethan to

rap in the same performance. Inter-textual, may have beginning, middle and end but not necessarily in that order

• Characterisation-it could be deliberate cross-gender casting

StagingActors played scenery and props, and played themselves using story and character merely as vehicles for direct interactions with audiences.

De-familairising the familiar: Rejected conventional notions of where theatre should be presented. It could be in restaurants, in a restroom, in an abandoned railway station etc

Set: It is no longer in a building site-created e.g. at a cemetry and create play using gravestone, epitaphs, existing landscape etc. to create performance.

site-specific- rehearse performance and perform in venue different to rehearsal space.

Performance, instead of conventional presenting of lines, could be done as rap

Character, time, space does not have to be from same era. Can be pastiche (collage) of different strea

Difference between Realism and Post-Modern Theatre

Access to universal truths can be achieved through formal devices like plot, cause and effect, and character development

There are many possible truths, depending on the point of view. Playwrights, actors and audience members all lend their perspectives to the creative process.

To be able to create this illusion it was imperative for the actors to become the character on stage. No more make-believe, but an actor who really experiences each and every emotion and feeling of the character he portrays on stage.

Rejects the notion of make-believe and instead sees theatrical performance as a real life event or happening in which the audience participates. Grand narrative is shattered- overturning the promise of grand stories to provide absolute, permanent, and universal Truth for their audiences

Acting to be believable

 

Primary focus upon the actor, the ”body in the space”. The actor embodies the narrative, playing multiple roles and engaging the audience with their craft and versatility:It could be deliberate cross-gender casting — as, for example, actors switching roles as well as genders between the first and second acts of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine (1983), or a young actress with an obviously fake beard playing the old Jewish rabbi at the opening of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1993) — forces us to confront a meaningful separation between the actor and his or herrole.

Characters were well- rounded with full historical and psychological backgrounds

Deconstructing drama into storytelling and disconnecting actors from characters in order to toss the play’s issues directly into the audience (see visual on next slide)

Script*Texts are collaboratively authored, they are not singular, stable, or consensual

*Can be re-created from an existing script or it can be a new script. It is fluid and can be reconstructed as it is developed.

*No longer a hierarchy with theatre elements: script, a playwright, director

*The script was absolute in era prior to this. In post modern performances, texts can be made out of lights with quotes projected onto screen.

*Texts are changed, revised, updated and transformed through performance practices

*The emphasis is on process rather than product

*The rehearsal process in a theatrical production is driven more by shared meaning-making and improvisation, than by the scripted text

Difference between Realism and Post-Modern Theatre

To sustain the illusion it was necessary to hide all devices In the postmodern theatre, the “showing” is part of the “show.”

Theatre practitioners were frantic about recreating life on stage The audience was to be lured into believing that what they see on stage is really happening; therefore the play was generally set in a short space of time ('real time') with only a few characters.

Devices like standard plots and character development are minimized.

Use of a box set on a Proscenium stage was the most popular setting.Box set represents real life in every detail eg period, social standingProps were the real thingLighting realistic and appears to come from real sources e.g. a lamp

Multi-media forms

The postmodern disconnect between actor and character is helpful in creating this openness, as playwrights or directors seek to create “roles” more than characters, inviting the audience to see an actor not as a character but rather as an actor playing a character.

Difference between Realism and Post-Modern Theatre

The proscenium arch (in front of the scene) or picture frame remained as the surround for the stage - framing the action that the audience, who were seated in the dark, viewed through the invisible fourth wall. Three dimensional sets were the order of the day and great attention was paid to set dressing in order to create a realistic environment in which the actor could 'live' his role. Hence the use of sofas, vases, light-fittings, carpets, paintings, portraits, curtains, windows and doors that opened and closed etc.

Flexible staging depending on text

To be able to create "a slice of life" on stage it was necessary that all theatrical devices such as lights and sound equipment be hidden from the view of the audience.

Not creating a slice of life on stage hence no need to use devices to create illusion. Increasingly, the raw mechanics of theatrical practice are visible e.g. microphones, worn on the actor’s body, forcing us to acknowledge the actor and the theatrical technology the actor employs, beneath the character being played.

Audience never witnessed the set changes which took place behind the closed curtains thereby reinforcing the illusion of reality

Plays increasingly comment on their own dramatisation— their dramaturgy — as well e.g. in Urinetown (2001) a characterasks another, “Is this where you tell the audience about the water shortage?”

Some notable playwrights

Tom Stoppard: meta-fictional plays often offer pastiches of different literary and historical sources.

David Mamet: plays tend to focus on the ways in which people relate to, assault, and manipulate one another through language.

Sam Shepard: plays tend to examine clashes between different generations and social classes.

Eric Bogosian: distinctly self-conscious plays consider the influence of mass media on postmodern American life.

The influence of Postmodernist Theatre

• Post modernism reminds us that meaning is never universal, total, neutral, or permanent.• t uses the strategies of blankness, irony, and reflexivity (going back

and forth) to heighten our awareness.• Revolt against realism- of one belief/ one answer. Post

modernism says there are multiple realities, perspectives, styles, use of language, performance space, themes, stories e.g. Shortcuts

• Playwrights had liberty to experiment with various genres, styles, etc. Disassembling a text and uncovering its tensions, contradictions, absences, and paradoxes. In this view, meaning is not contained in the superficial content of the text

• creates a condition in which “anything goes,” and therefore no interpretation should assume priority over an alternative.

The reader is the creator of meaning The author does not hold any ultimate truth the product created Scripts often just a starting point Performance itself layered with images, soundscapes and multi-

media experiences that could not have been captured in a script The text for Hamletmachine, for example, is more like a score

for an orchestra than a script for actors to follow faithfully. The director might interpret, add images or choose styles to flesh out the script.

In Ben Elton’s Popcorn, a debate rages as to whether or not movies are responsible for violence in society. The playwright does not offer one point of view, rather leaving the audience to construct their own ‘ultimate’ message.

This concept, known in literature as ‘reader response theory’

Post Modern drama

Examples of Post modernist plays

Peter Shaffer’s Equus• In Peter Shaffer’s Equus- Alan Strang , made clear

that staged nudity, though perhaps no longer shocking, retains its tremendous power to create an intense theatrical impact.

• In Equus, the way the scenes shift seamlessly and different locations blend together in the telling of the story, supports the theme of a psychological reality that is impossible to pin down.

Hamletmachine (in German, Die Hamletmaschine)

Hamletmachine (in German, Die Hamletmaschine) • Hamletmachine (in German, Die Hamletmaschine)

is a postmodernist drama by German playwright and theatre director Heiner Müller. Written in 1977

• Characteristic of the play is that it is not centred on a conventional plot, but partially connects through

• The play is constituted of scenes. The whole text is roughly nine pages long. The script itself is extremely dense and open to interpretation; recurring themes include feminism

HEINER MULLER. HAMLET MACHINE

The play is loosely based on Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The play originated in relation to a translation of Shakespeare's Hamlet that Müller undertook. Some critics claim the play problematises the role of intellectuals during the East German Communism area; others argue that the play should be understood in relation to wider post-modern concepts. Characteristic of the play is that it is not centred on a conventional plot, but partially connects through sequences of monologues, where the protagonist leaves his role and reflects on being an actor.

Top Girls deals with women’s losing their humanity in order to attain power in a male-dominated environment

BEN ELTON. POPCORNThe book depicts the differences between different social groups in America, from rich people with guards like Bruce Delamitri to poorer people Wayne and Scout.

TOM STOPPARD ROZENCRANTS AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD

The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare`s hamlet, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The action of Stoppard's play takes place mainly "in the wings" of Shakespeare's, with brief appearances of major characters from Hamlet who enact fragments of the original's scenes. Between these episodes the two protagonists voice their confusion at the progress of events of which—occurring onstage without them in Hamlet—they have no direct knowledge.

SAM SHEPARD. BURRIED CHILD

Theatre which depicts the fragmentation of the American nuclear family in a context of disappointment and disillusionment with American mythology and the American dream, the 1970s rural economic slowdown and the breakdown of traditional family structures and values.

ROBERT WILSON. STALIN. EINSTEINWilson structured Einstein on the Beach as a repeating sequence of three different kinds of space. Between major acts are shorter entr'actes known as "knee plays," a signature technique that Wilson has applied throughout his oeuvre. Propelling idea of "non-plot" within Einstein on the Beach, its libretto employs syllables, numbers, and short sections of poetry. In an interview, Glass comments that he originally intended for his audience to construct personal connections with Einstein as a character and with the music that he assigns to the icon.

POSTMODERN DRAMAGlossary

• aesthetic: a set of principles underlying an artistic movement• centre: Europe and the rest of the Western world were traditionally regarded as the centre of philosophical

thought and culture, but Postmodern thinking questions this idea, saying that there is not one centre and there is not a margin, rather many different sites, or locations, which are just as important as each other

• deconstruction: to take apart an idea, or a set of ideas. A literary and philosophical movement that emphasises that a text has an unlimited amount of interpretations

• disembodied: separated from the body • juxtapose: to place two or more contrasting images or ideas next to each other• meta-text: text that self-consciously refers to itself• meta-theatre: theatre that comments on itself• multiplicity: a large number• nonlinear constructions: when a play is structured in such a way that the plot leads in a number of different

directions rather than in a straight line• plurality: a large number of people or things• polyphonic: many voices• pastiche: an artistic work that is made up of an assortment of different pieces imitating a variety of sources• paradigm: worldview • periphery: the edge or margin • reflexivity: something that refers back to itself, comments on itself or reflects on itself