Your answer (about 500 words) should cover at least the following grounds:- You should give me your quick-and-simple distinction between theatre and performance.
- You should explain your distinction.
- You should provide some examples, walking me through an explanation of how your distinction helps us discriminate between, say, a football game and a play.
Now, it's possible you feel strongly enough that no such distinction is possible. If that's the case, make that argument as persuasively as you can.
How important is it, really, to make a distinction between theatre and performance? For whom is that difference important and why?
Aim to post a response to this prompt on your blog by Tuesday, 1/21. Post a comment about a classmate's blog post here by Friday 1/24. (Ex: "I looked at Kaitlin's blog. She says that theatre is exclusively the purview of muppets, which seems extreme. I'd at least allow sock puppets, not just muppets...")
Contact me if you have questions or concerns.
John
I read Tiffany's blog She argues that the specific ingredients needed to make theatre all have to be in the recipe or else it's not really theatre it's. She narrowed it down so theatre can overlap with performance but still have a clear distinction. My own argument about implied social contract between all participants is less thorough but can be taking in accord with her structure based arguments.
ReplyDeleteLike Alan, I considered the impermanence of capital-T Theatre as a way of elucidating these differences. And while I don't agree with the exact language of their description, I do think its fleetingness (and particularly that "curtain-call moment," where we ceremoniously unravel the illusion in front of our eyes) lend Theatre to this idea of theater undoing itself.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons I stayed away from this particular argument, however, has to do with the blurred lines between performative utterance, capital-T Theatre, and what we, with our analytical eyes, call "Political Theatre". Political theater, like the ongoing impeachment trial, is highly performative, intended for an audience, has a huge cast, operates within a social contract, and ultimately ends after a designated performance time and place. I could choose to watch it for the pain it causes me, I could let it move me to action (as John notes above), or I can get drunk and have a laugh or cry. No matter what I choose, the actors still don't want me yelling and heckling them as they perform. Not only that, but I pay to see this Theatre with my taxes and decision to remain in this representative democracy, and it'll happen whether or not I choose to "attend" a particular performance. These are all elements of Capital-T Theatre, but they do not unravel at the end. The rhetoricians eventually run out of air, and the Political Theatre comes to a close... but the effects are not erased at all. Rather they are often permanent, pertinent, and proliferated around our country. Can anyone else think of a semantic or tangible difference between someone coming to, say, Swine Palace, and Political Theatre? Maybe something about creative intention?
I read Alan's blog and just wanted to add to the part about theatre: "Theatre must undo itself. The fact that the LSU Tigers won the 2020 National Championship did not undo itself when the last quarter ended. As the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet does when the actors rise from their graves and take a bow." I assume that in some cases, for instance, in Theatre of the Oppressed, in some scenarios theatre does influence on the present and is establishing new rules in society. I would look at this as combination between Theatre and Performance. As it has a plot in present time, actors, audience, and also a participance of authorities, who can actually accept proposed change in the law or different real life cases.
ReplyDeleteI originally posted my response to Henry's Blog ON Henry's blog and not yours. This was my misunderstanding of the assignment to respond to the blogs.
ReplyDeleteThis was my response:
The word "disciplines" is well used in this response. Performance having multiple disciplines is an excellent way to describe how performance is a broader term than Theatre, a specific discipline under the umbrella of performance.
This sentence is excellent: "What made this performance theatre was the social agreement between we the performers and our audience who came to see the show."
It sounds more like the "seeing place" isn't necessarily a place/location, but a social/artistic contract between the audience and the performers. Perhaps a place in the minds of the performers and the spectators/audience. I think you do a good job at attempting to break it down a little and compare it to other types of performance, but I feel like it could be more clear what the social agreement in Theatre is specifically.