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This book defines theatricality and performativity through metaphors of texture and weaving, drawn mainly from anthropologist Tim Ingold and philosopher Stephen C. Pepper. Tracing the two concepts' various relations to practices of seeing and doing, but also to conflicting values of novelty and normativity, the study proceeds in a series of intertwining threads, from the theatrical to the performative: Antitheatrical (Plato, the Baroque, Michael Fried); Pro-theatrical (directors Wagner, Fuchs, Meyerhold, Brecht, and Brook); Dramatic (weaving memory in Shaffer's Amadeus and Beckett's Footfalls ); Efficient (from modernist "machines for living in" to the "smart home"); Activist (knit graffiti, clown patrols, and the Anthropo(s)cene). An approach is developed in which 'performativity' names the way we tacitly weave worlds and identities, variously concealed or clarified by the step-aside tactics of 'theatricality'.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Theatrical Metaphors, Textile Philosophies.- 2. Emptiness and Excess: The Cave, the Colonnade, and the Cube.- 3. Directorial Perspectives: The Image, the Platform, the Tightrope.- 4. "Revolving It All": Weaves of Memory in Amadeus and Footfalls.- 5. Smart Homes and Dwelling Machines: Function, Ornament, and Cognition.- 6. Protest in Colour and Concrete: Theatrical Textures in the Urban Fabric.- 7. Knots and Loose Ends: Cycles of Change, Metaphors of Range.
About the author
Teemu Paavolainen is Research Fellow in Theatre and Performance at the University of Tampere, Finland. His
Theatre/Ecology/Cognition: Theorizing Performer-Object Interaction in Grotowski, Kantor, and Meyerhold was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2012. His articles have appeared in
Performance Philosophy,
Theatre Symposium,
Nordic Theatre Studies, and
The Cognitive Humanities (2016).
Summary
Deploys philosophical theories and concepts to interrogate 'theatricality'
Explores the notions of theatricality, performativity and cognitive ecology across a wide range of examples and case studies
Offers a diverse collection of essays engaging with a variety of disciplines and historical contexts
