Unlisted character : on the representation of war and conflict on the contemporary stage

The focus of this dissertation is the theatrical representation of both the individual and war in a time of disintegrating national states and the dramatisation of destruction versus survival as the driving forces on stage. In a study on the future of empire it has been observed that instead of progressing into a peaceful future, the 21st century has slipped back in time into the nightmare of perpetual and indeterminate state of warfare: ceasing to be the exceptional state, war has become 'the primary organising principle of society', thus echoing Giorgio Agamben's declaration that the state of exception has become the status quo. Seminal studies on contemporary warfare and society such as Mary Kaldor's New & Old Wars (2005) and Ulrich Beck's World at Risk (2008 [2007]) trace how the face of war has changed over the past fifteen years. The dramatic texts examined in this thesis reach from plays depicting inner-state conflict, civil war and the politics of fear, for example Caryl Churchill's Far Away (2000), Sarah Kane's Blasted (1995) and Zinnie Harris's war trilogy (2005-2008) over documentary and verbatim-based plays and their attempt to portray the trauma of war by recreating on stage the process of giving testimony and by endorsing public grieving (e.g. various Tricycle productions and Gregory Burke's Black Watch [2006]), to adaptations of Greek tragedies (like Martin Crimp's Cruel and Tender [2004]) and a Shakespearean play. The questions underlying this work are: how can war be represented on stage? and, how do the plays replicate the sociological structures leading to violence and war and explore their transformation of societies? Springing from the discussion about 'New Wars' in the age of globalisation, it will be demonstrated here how these 'New Wars' also bring forth new plays about war

British socialist theatre 1930-1979 : class, politics and dramatic form

The field covered contains the major phases of British socialist theatre between 1930 and 1979. It focuses on the issues raised by the concept of socialist theatre, such as those of class, politics and dramatic form, in order to discuss the relationships between agendas of political tasks, the development of suitable forms for their dramatic expression, and the nature of the audiences which have been attracted. The discussion draws on a range of contemporary sources which include unpublished scripts and other material, together with oral evidence from some practitioners.The historical episodes covered begin with the career of the Workers' Theatre Movement and its successors the Unity Theatres and the Left Book Club Theatre Guild in the 1930s. It then examines how this was continued during the Second World War; and how it was affected by the political and other circumstances of the immediate post-war years. Finally it deals with the revival of socialist theatre in Britain during the 19705.The thesis is intended to contribute to the understanding of the relations between theatre, politics and the labour movement by means of an historical perspective on concrete examples. It examines the extent to which the different examples achieved the objectives they set themselves, and in so doing discusses the circumstances which have made successful socialist theatre possible in Britain during this period

The voice of authority : Evelyn Waugh's fiction

A large part of the extant criticism of Evelyn Waugh's fiction is orientated towards either a biographical or a literary-historical interest: there are comparatively few detailed surveys of the novels themselves. This study attempts such a survey, and in particular examines the tension which inheres in the relationship of Waugh's poised, urbane narrators to the social and moral chaos they depict. I have been interested in the source and management of that poise, the testing, as it were to destruction, of a series of narrative positions. There is a very modern equation to be observed in Waugh's fiction, between the potentially anarchic mode of fiction and what Waugh felt to be the actual anarchy of contemporary civilisation. His novels can with interest be read in terms of a comic exploitation of this equation, and subsequently, as the writer aged, of his attempts to evade its logic, to discover a 'voice of authority'. Apparently secure narrative stances are repeatedly undermined, and a succession of 'realities' compromised - Tony Last's, William Boot's, John Plant's, Guy Crouchback's. It is this awareness and exploitation of the reflexive quality of fiction, and its use in disclosing the nature of his age which lends Waugh's writing its real and enduring interest. I seek to draw out this awareness through detailed examination of the different novels' precise narrative stance, the source of their 'voice', and have been largely content to let stand other commentators' descriptions of Waugh's broader thesis. My method involves close attention to Waugh's language, from the conviction that nuances of tone and the development of marginal allusions and metaphors are the keys to many of his characteristic effects

The Way of Transformation (The Laban-Malmgren System of Dramatic Character Analysis)

The dissertation is a 'critical edition' of a system of actor training based on three main sources: a vocabulary of movement analysis developed by Rudolf Laban in the last years of his life; C. G. Jung's theory of psychological functions and types; and the acting system of C. Stanislavski and his main followers. The three strands were brought together by the dancer and acting teacher Yat Malmgren (1916-2002), who taught his system for over forty years to some of the major figures of world theatre and film: Peter Brook, Pierce Brosnan, Simon Callow, Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Adrian Noble among others. The dissertation is presented in two volumes: - Volume I sets the system in context, historically as well as in terms of current discourses about the nature of acting. It includes a survey of its origins, followed by an in-depth examination of its three main sources, focusing on the central concept of energy in acting. Further chapters describe: a. a systematic, step-by-step psychophysical approach to analysing character, the actor's own self and to ways of bridging the two in the process of transformation. The author captures the salient features of a method of work which informs aspects of Western acting practice. b. the light thrown by the system on the idea of theatre character. The author puts forward the idea of a character 'independent' of both actor and text. c. the applications of the system in training and professional practice, based on interviews with a number of prominent British actors and directors. - Volume II consists of a detailed, annotated description of the system. It is based on a free transcript of recordings of Yat Malmgren's teaching and amounts to a 'manual' for those interested in studying and/or teaching the system. The volume is illustrated throughout. Appendices include original materials derived from Laban's last years of work, published here for the first time

James Hanley: modernism and the working class.

This thesis examines the work of James Hanley (1901-1985), a working-class ordinary seaman who became a professional writer for most of his adult life. His reputation was made originally during the 1930s when he was often identified with the emergent group of industrial-based' proletarian' realists. However, Hanley's writing radically departs from conventional notions of realism and will be shown to have closer associations with both mainstream and sub-cultural forms of modernism. Theoretically, the thesis is grounded in Georg Lukacs's History and Class Consciousness, which argues that the 'totality' of social relations is made intelligible only through a working-class realization of the dialectic. His social insight is then adapted and, along with other compatible Marxist readings, developed for a literary theory which argues that, read dialectically, working-class interventions reveal the conflictual and contradictory aspects of literary formations and movements. Hanley's life and career is characterized by what is consistently represented as a 'class struggle' at both the social and textual levels: a pervasive phenomenon whereby marginal initiatives both resist and affirm the ideology of the dominant culture. Hanley is also interesting in terms of his spatial and temporal range which, unlike that of other working class writers, is confined neither to that moment of the 1930s, nor to the workplace, but addresses the broad spectrum of 20th-century British history and culture, including the crisis moments of two world wars, and the salient questions of modernity: political engagement and retreat, individuality and community, country and city. Methodologically, such a complexity is more fully explained by an intertextual approach which locates Hanley within both a European tradition and various currents of contemporary writing. It is argued that class is the key determining factor in understanding both these processes, and the analagous problematics of Hanley's social trajectory, each of which are shown to have profound textual consequences. Empirically, the social and cultural sources of his work are traced from the place of his origins, Liverpool, through the domain of the sea, to the modem world of metropolitan publishing and finally to rural Wales, his adopted country. The thesis concludes that interpreting modernism through the category of class has implications for developing general theories of literary culture: namely that cultural phenomena cannot be characterized by any singular factor or process, but are more adequately interpreted dialectically, that is to say as the result of a struggle between competing meanings of tradition, reality, history and art

Bathrooms, bubbles and systems : archigram and the landscapes of transience

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 168-175).The dissertation studies the Archigram, the primary avant-garde architectural publication in Britain from 1961 to 1970, and the related avant-garde practices that engendered the high-tech movement. Drawing on the histories of technology, architecture and popular culture, the study explores the roots of architecture's foray into the realm of electronic information. By challenging the machine-based model of technology that had defined modernist architectural theory and production, my thesis unfolds, the publishers of the Archigram struggled to reconcile architectural form with emerging technologies and to represent visually the dissolution of the artifact into a landscape of complex and indeterminate systems. This attempt to conceive an essentially material object, such as a house, in a world viewed as a series of impulses was among the earliest architectural explorations of the dilemmas introduced by electronic culture. Using the concept of mobility and flux as a unifying thread, the dissertation examines the strategy for developing an architecture based in the practice of representation and of dissemination. The desire to set structures in motion by liberating them from the anchor of urban infrastructures required a reconsideration of the architectural object. For architecture to fully abandon its traditional role as environmental hardware, the conflict between the processes of indeterminacy and the dependence of those processes on a closed system would have to be overcome.(cont.) This tension between the physical and the dematerialized led from megastructural networks to self-contained skins, and finally to the disintegration of architectural objects into a technologically driven version of the Picturesque. In the ultimate merging of the environmental domain with that of information, architecture would become its absence, marked in the landscape only as the residue of a nomadic culture of information.by Hadas A. Steiner.Ph.D

The battle of the stages : the conflict between the theatre and the institutions of government and religion in England 1660-1890

Between 1660 and 1880 a number of Royal Patents were granted and Acts of ParI iament passed whose purpose and effect, it has generally been acknowledged, was to restrict the spread and availability of English theatre, in particular that within the two cities of the metropolis, and to limit its potential as a forum of debate for the examination of ideas or the promotion of political dissent. During the same period, although not necessarily at the same time, theatre came under fire from religious groups of many different denominations. This condemnation and the measures taken by this special interest group in society to combat the influence of the stage has also been held to have had a restrictive effect on the institution of theatre. This research has been primarily based on an examination and analysis oflegislation, parliamentary debates, religious tracts, papers and letters in Lambeth Palace Library, letters in the Manuscript Department of the British Library, theatre texts, the writings of contemporary theatre critics, articles in contemporary newspapers and journals specialising in theatrical topics, specialist reports and magazines published by various religious denominations, contemporary pamphlets, diaries, biographies, theatre ephemera and current critical writing in specialist magazines and books devoted to theatrical and religious topics. After discussing the reasons for setting the parameters of 1660 and the late 1880s for this research, the thesis considers the importance of the institution of theatre in the particular period studied and its relationship to the whole panorama of the history of theatre. After detailing a number of questions regarding the purpose of theatre and the effect it has and has had on society, this research examines the objects, effects and motivation behind the main statutes that were enacted to deal with the phenomenon of theatre between 1660 and 1880. In particular the genesis and context of The Restoration Patents, the Licensing Act (1737), the Disorderly Houses Act (1751), the Theatrical Representations Act (1788), the failed Sadler's Wells Bill (1788), and Interludes Bill (1788), and the Theatres Act (1843) have been examined, the aims of each debated and the effects of each of the legislative measures on theatre as a whole is explored. The opposition that came from religious forces within the country during the period under study is also examined and analysed. The complaints from Church and Chapel were various: blasphemy, indolence, vice, perversion (particularly of the young), consorting with unwholesome company and drawing people away from God were all cited as sins of the stage. The underlying causes ofthe censure of important religious figures as well as that which came from different denominations is examined. The various measures put into operation to combat the dangers perceived to be coming from theatre are explored and their efficiency debated. Finally the study examines the nature of the theatrical experience and how this has been affected by the legislation and condemnation of the religious interest in the country. A principal conclusion is that theatre in England was not repressed or rendered impotent by any of the legislation nor was it by the tactical opposition of the religious faction in society. Indeed theatre gained strength and potency by finding ways to circumvent the opposition it encountered. So successful was it in overcoming the ploys of the legislature and religious interests and so instrumental was theatre as a focus for life in England during the period under study that both of the forces of opposition eventually had to adopt theatre as an ally in the implementation of their own political agenda

Breaking Littlewood's Cipher

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