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Title: Contrasting the use of technology and machinery : Erwin Piscator & Robert Lepage
Authors: Fenech, Joanne (2011)
Keywords: Piscator, Erwin, 1893-1966
Lepage, Robert, 1957-
Theater -- Technological innovations
Theater -- Political aspects
Issue Date: 2011
Abstract: As Kenneth Pickering states, '[t]he use of mechanical devices to assist in staging of plays appears to be almost as old as Western theatre itself, and whenever spectacle has dominated the taste of audiences, stage machinery has been developed to assist its creation' (Pickering 2005:190; emphasis in the original). The developments in technology and machinery, evident also in daily life, affect the choices made in generating performance work. For example, the potential of human performance is questioned. The actor-spectator/actor dynamic in theatre is often challenged with the use of the machinery and technology. My dissertation, Contrasting the use of technology and machinery: Erwin Piscator and Robert Lepage, builds on such considerations. As the title suggests, the work of Piscator and Lepage will be used as case-studies aimed at evaluating the role of machinery and technology in performance. I chose these case studies because they will assist my framing of the discussion to the twentieth-century. In fact, Piscator's use of technology and machinery can be seen as having marked his pre-World War II work, while Lepage is a contemporary theatre practitioner (born in 1957) whose work links the twentieth-century to the twenty-first. Therefore, by using Piscator and Lepage, I will be drawing a line throughout the twentieth-century and extending it to the twenty-first. However, in order to facilitate the exposition of my argument, the first chapter of my dissertation will serve as a contextualising framework to highlight some important historical examples of mechanical mediations to theatre performance. In order to do so, three examples will three examples which will serve to analyse technology and machinery, namely spectacle and/or illusion. The other three chapters will focus on Piscator and Lepage's use of machinery and technology. Three different approaches in comparing and contrasting Piscator and Lepage can be identified. First, I will take into account the role machinery and technology play in order to manipulate time and space in the two practitioners' performances. The recurrent thread, i.e. spectacle and illusion, which was expounded upon in chapter one, will be used in this section to elaborate on this manipulation of time and space. I will discuss how Piscator was knowingly seeking to create spectacle while, on the other hand, Lepage elevated spectacle to the level of illusion. Secondly, I will take into consideration how the use of technology and machinery was used by the two practitioners to affect the audience's experience. I will address the differences between Piscator's political theatre and Lepage's performance/rehearsal. I will examine the creation of a particular political message, which the audience should decipher in Piscator's work. Lepage will be investigated through his use of taking his spectator on a process of discovery, a process which is full of possibilities. Finally, I will compare and contrast Piscator's use of documentary theatre to Lepage's storytelling. In this exposition, Piscator's and Lepage's attitudes towards their audiences will be heightened: since he considers his audience to be of the same socio-political background, Piscator can be seen to have manipulated the story, i.e. history, in order to get a planned response from his audience, while Lepage's conception of individual meaning and individual spectator can be seen as serving as a c interpretations since the audience can choose what they want to look at.
Description: B.A.(HONS)THEATRE STUD.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/3320
Appears in Collections:Dissertations - InsMITSD - 2011

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