https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/21926 2026-04-11T03:26:15Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/24410 Title: Tragedy and tragic expressions in C21 postdramatic theatre contexts Abstract: It is a widely accepted notion that we inhabit a postdramatic age whereby the importance of the dramatic within tragic modes has been questioned and problematised. Aristotelian criteria and its cumulative dramatic heritage, no longer seems to exert an influence or act as a ‘regulating principle’ in performance today (Lehmann 2006: 22). The common ground that seems to have brought this change in performance is society’s dependence on media and what Guy Debord defines as ‘the society of spectacle’ (1983: 3). Hans-Thies Lehmann’s recent work on tragedy and dramatic elements of theatre and performance repositions contemporary performance as a conglomerate that includes both dramatic and postdramatic elements (2016: 3–4). Lehmann posits that parameters need to be asserted ‘between predramatic, dramatic and postdramatic’ to access the ‘authentically tragic experience’ (4). This research will attempt to question the purpose of such distinct categories and will posit that the dramatic elements that inform tragedy still retain their original form. If this argument is true, therefore, the tragic continuum has not been broken. In addition to addressing this continuation, this study will question whether the tragic form changed to such an extent that it warrants a new definition following the postdramatic paradigm. Through the exploration of contemporary tragedy, it is hoped that these categorical aspects of form can be blurred to heighten the evolutionary nature of society and its relation to the tragic form. Selected work from Penelope Skinner and Philip Ridley will assist in answering the question whether social parameters, through which tragedy is perceived today, has truly evolved beyond recognition. By applying traditional (historic) modes of analysis with the consciousness of new interdisciplinary paradigms, it will be argued that one can attempt the approximation of some level truth, or tragic authenticity, relevant to the contemporary condition. Description: M.A.THEATRE&PERFORMANCE 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/24399 Title: Changing sonic experiences : sound and soundscapes in contemporary theatre Abstract: Over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, sound and soundscapes have changed as our daily environments developed in line with the zeitgeist of the time – one that began to value the concept of individual experience. The awareness of sound and soundscapes in daily life as an orchestration is reflected in artists’ compositional soundscapes in performance. The changing sonic experiences have evolved in theatre through the actor’s work and increasingly through the digital work of the sound designer. The separation of the body from the voice has created an awareness of sounds and images as separate elements, as the telephone, gramophone, and cinema transmit acousmatic sounds, i.e. unseen sounds, through loudspeakers, microphones and headphones. Digital technology complicates and impacts the experience of sound, altering its spatial location as sound is heard as acoustic imaginary. In investigating this phenomenon, Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophy on listening is applied to examine the interaction between daily life and artists’ work, since it is grounded on the fact that through sound, resonance generates inference and kinaesthetic sensations as the body positions itself to listen. From a historical perspective, the search for sonic experience is considered through three artists’ work, namely: playwright Anton Chekhov’s breaking string effect in The Cherry Orchard; visionary Antonin Artaud’s idea for a theatre based on interweaving sound and gestures; and practitioner Jerzy Grotowski’s work on the body–voice dynamic during the Theatre of Productions phase via Akropolis and The Constant Prince. The interweaving of elements by twenty-first-century artists develops into a separation and even elimination. Therefore the considered total act of theatre, i.e. the actor–audience dynamic is challenged and the interaction with alternative mediums instead of direct human interaction in theatre merits ethical considerations. Finally, in contemporary theatre, two twenty-first-century case studies are investigated: Simon McBurney’s The Encounter 2016 in 3D binaural sound experienced through headphones for a more intimate audience experience; and Heiner Goebbels’ Stifters Dinge 2008 – an installation-type performance that investigates the effect that an absent actor has on audience involvement. Theatre artists experiment with sound in order to involve audiences in sonic experiences through listening, employing sound designers as collaborative artists. Therefore, one may argue that through digital technology, the sound designer, like the actor, has become one of the main elements in the act of theatre. Description: M.A.THEATRE&PERFORMANCE 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/24396 Title: New visualities in contemporary theatre : media dramaturgies and the suspended image in Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio and Katie Mitchell Abstract: The turn of the twenty-first century was marked by social and political upheavals in Europe and other parts of the world, including the rise of terrorism and the recurrent financial crises. This situation has exacerbated diffidence in dominant political structures and fuelled alternative modes of thinking. In theatre, constructs like narrative, text, action, and character were subjected to further strategies of rupture than those that emerged through the work of the avant-garde in the twentieth century. In this context, digital technology and media can no longer be considered as separate from other elements of theatre-making, and are now intricately woven to a progressively more dominant degree. In the new century, theatre reflects the mind-set of a mediatised audience which has given rise to what has been called a ‘new visuality’, i.e. new ways of seeing, perceiving, and experiencing. Theatre groups and directors like Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio and Katie Mitchell utilise the image to construct new and different realities in time and space. Using forms of photography, painting, theatrical elements, and cinematic techniques, their art form is far removed from the various conventional constructs of theatre and cinema. Historically, the use of the image in theatre can be traced as far back as the 1920s when theatre-makers like Frederick Kiesler (1922) and Erwin Piscator (1927) produced hybrid forms of theatre and the moving image to give a different spatio-temporal reality. By looking at the work of contemporary theatre-makers Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio and Katie Mitchell, this dissertation considers what elements and techniques are employed to engage (to captivate and to alienate) audiences. In these contexts, practices of ‘media dramaturgy’ are used to allow audiences to experience and interpret in new ways, in the process privileging the role of the spectator. With this kind of rupture and fragmentation of staged reality in theatre, audiences question and find meaning through their own experiences and the media being used. Description: M.A.THEATRE&PERFORMANCE 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/24395 Title: Teaching through marionettes : applying creative teaching to enhance learning within the main subjects of the Maltese national curriculum framework Abstract: This work is based on a pilot study within a Maltese secondary school, where students of different abilities were taught English through the medium of marionettes, which they themselves had built. The pilot study was conducted with Year 9 and Year 10 pupils, some of whom have a low level of English proficiency. The dissertation discusses marionette theatre in particular, and theatre in general, as a key academic resource which stimulates learning and life-skills. The work traces the process of the study, and shows how creative thinking and teaching skills may be developed to enhance learning. It draws more general conclusions with regard to the use of theatre as a fundamental pedagogical tool. The ultimate aim of the study is to show how theatre can be integrated into the teaching of school syllabi as established by the Maltese National Curriculum Framework. Description: M.A.THEATRE&PERFORMANCE 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z