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The Field of Drama PDF

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Of HOW THE SIGNS OF DRAMA CREATE MEANING ON STAGE & SCREEN M A R TI N E S S L I N methuen i i i ! The Field of Drama ; i Martin Esslin joined the BBC in 1940 and was head of Drama (Radio) from 1963-1977. Currently he lives one half 1 of each year in California, where he is professor of drama at Stanford University, and the other half in London. He is \ author of books on Pinter, Brecht and Artaud, and of a seminal book on modern drama, The Theatre of the Absurd. He has published two collections of essays: Brief Chronicles: . t Essays on Modem Drama and Mediations: Essays on Brecht, Beckett and the Media. His critical articles have appeared t, regularly in Plays and Players, Encounter, and many other !■ r periodicals. He is also a well-known translator of plays, Particularly by German-speaking dramatists. 1 r ; . i i i ;• \ ; ! K It-',,' i MARTIN ESSLIN also by Martin Esslin The Field of Drama Brecht: A Choice of Evils Mediations: Essays on Brecht, Beckett and the Media Pinter the Playwright HOW THE SIGNS OF DRAMA CREATE MEANING ON STAGE AND SCREEN ) 1 "S' ■h ■> r i •: - • ! Methuen Drama I I. 1 r r- . r. i iw\ Contents !■■■• i' s h. £ i. Preface i page 9 1 Introduction 13 j II The Field of Drama fr > III The Nature of Drama 22 36 First published in Great Britain in 1987 by Methuen Drama, IV The Signs of Drama: Icon, Index, Symbol 43 ... , *?. of Reed Consumer Books Ltd, V The Signs of Drama: The Frame 52 chelin House, 8r Fulham Road, London SW3 6RB VI The Signs of Drama: The Actor 56 anadn dA duicsktriaibnudt,e Md einlb tohuer nUen, iSteindg Satpaoteres aonf dA Tmoerroicnat o i VII The Signs of Drama: Visuals and Design 72 by Routledge, a division of VIII The Signs of Drama: The Words 79 Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc, IX The Signs of Drama: Music and Sound 88 29 West 35th Street, NYIOOOI X The Signs of Stage and Screen 91 Copyright © 1987 by Martin Esslin XI Structure as Signifier 106 XII The Performers and the Audience 128 First published in paperback in 1988 j XIII The Audience’s Competence: Reprinted 1990,1991,i992} i993j 1994 (twice) Social Conventions and Personal Meanings 139 I Printed anti bound in Great Britain by XIV A Hierarchy of Meanings 154 Cox & Wyntan Ltd, Reading, Berkshire Bibliography 179 Index ■\ British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data 187 I i ; Esslin, Martin l he field of drama : how the signs of drama createmeaning on stageand^creen. i Drama. Semiotic aspects I. Title !; 808.2 I: ISBN 0-4I3^926(m I I fr :: < . 1 t l i )' l r ! • I 4 ! W\ . . I ! All the world’s a stage Shakespeare El gran teatro del mundo Calderon Die Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten [The boards that signify the world] Schiller Wie machen wirs, dass alles frisch und neu ; Und mit Bedeutung auch gefallig sei? : j [What can we do that all be fresh and new ! And with significance be pleasing too?] ! I Goethe i i :■ i ! . i • . Preface | I; .1 There is no shortage of books on the nature and technique of ! drama. Yet I have always been struck by the narrowness of their scope: they tend to concentrate entirely on stage drama, when, ! i i in fact, the overwhelming majority of dramatic material, the largest proportion of the actual experience of drama for the vast millions of its public, is derived from drama in the cinema and, ' above all, in television. The specialists, whether theoreticians of classical tragedy or highly sophisticated film critics - there is as yet hardly any serious criticism of drama on television - regard their respective ! areas as strictly separate. Yet the ordinary member of the public ; does not make these rigid distinctions. That great and highly intelligent actress Elisabeth Bergner once told me that she had at last persuaded Albert Einstein, who was a great friend and ; admirer of hers, to accompany her to the theatre. After the performance she asked him what he had thought of the play. But the great man refused to give an opinion. He knew too little about the finer points of performance. ‘You see’, he said, ‘I hardly ever go to the cinema!’. To look at the whole ‘field of drama’ seems to me to be a useful undertaking, precisely because only by starting from an ! overview of all the aspects of dramatic performance can we ! arrive at a clear differentiation of those features that each of the separate media - stage, film and television - can claim as ! specifically their own, as against the much larger number of aspects they have in common. : I . :■ ! ■ 1• •; io Preface Preface II I have also always thought it absurd that the rigid separation What struck me as unfortunate, however, from the outset, of stage drama from the cinematic media in higher education was the obscure language and excessively abstract way in which has led to the creation of separate theatre and film departments the, in many cases, outstandingly brilliant exponents of semi­ in most universities and colleges, often hardly communicating otics presented their findings. It almost seemed as though the with each other when each could gready profit from sharing very practicality and down-to-earth concreteness of what they their insights into what, basically, are closely related and some­ were basically engaged in had led them to try and make it times identical areas of theory and practice, which could much appear as ‘scientific’ and ‘philosophical’ as possible. Of course, more effectively be covered in a unified performing arts depart­ a scholarly subject needs a precise vocabulary. But all too often, ment. in reading these very involved texts, I for one was forced to Moreover, in recent times, important new ideas have been translate them back into practical terms only to realise that applied to the analysis of drama, the way in which it achieves its a very simple fact had been clothed in the most involved effects and conveys its meaning. This semiotic approach is, language. basically, exttemely simple and practical. It asks: how is it I well remember a conference on the semiotics of drama I done? and tries to supply the most down-to-earth answers, by attended to which one of the most distinguished directors of one examining the signs that are used to achieve the desired com- of the world’s leading theatres had been invited. The assembled munication. scholars delivered themselves of their respective, highly intelli­ There is, of course, nothing radically new here, except that j gent and theoretically brilliant papers, and then, eagerly asked e enterprise is systematic and methodical rather than ad-hoc the famous practitioner whether he had found some insights for an impressionistic. When I first came across the beginnings of his own work. They were deeply disappointed when he told the new scholarly literature on the semiology and semiotics of the ! them that he had found it all wholly useless and impenetrable. T and 1 fdt rather ^ M°liere’s M. Jourdain who That, I think, is really unfortunate. For a semiotic approach, lifp ^ t0 discover that he had been talking ‘prose’ all his provided it is expressed in intelligible language, could be of ! Dreckf»lVi4»m^ pract*ca* work as a director of drama these were great help to directors, designers, actors and other practitioners the innn ^ questions that had always occupied me in making of drama on stage and screen. It could, even at the most basic a (WtTeraK e ?raCtkal choices which constitute the work of level, lead them to think more clearly about what they are doing should heJt 3t °f costume should this character wear? intuitively and by instinct. speech whar T Stand wbile speaicin8 these lines? if I cut this Hence the present attempt to provide an overview of the field Pee what element of meaning will be lost> of drama, seen in the light of semiotics but in the widest ing tiieu^f a f"** performance as an enterprise involv- possible general frame of reference, in a form that might be clarify the role eafh of signs and sign-systems and to accessible both to the practical workers in that field and to the ultimate meaning of dements ^ in creatinS ^ general public of drama in all its forms. serviceable and Linf t per^°irmance thus clearly is an extremely I have tried to avoid, as much as that is possible, the prolifera­ I and the member of die t0? .both for *** practitioner of drama tion of obscure vocabulary and pseudo-scientific jargon that of what he has Keen P ° Wh° WantS t0 be critically aware screens so much valuable insight from the non-specialists. And seemg and experiencing. I have always made my experience as a practical director, I i : A )■.- f- ty 12 Preface ! t dramaturg and critic the final arbiter in enunciating any princi­ i i ples or conclusions. That - the constant testing of the theory against actual results - seems to me the real use of a genuinely !' ■ - ‘scientific’ methodology. Introduction r •v To make the book as accessible as possible to practical workers and students in drama, I have tried to restrict the number of r foot-notes and needless polemics with the specialist literature, but, on the other hand, to provide a fairly full bibliography of the whole field. i i This book started as a series of lectures I was asked to give at Drama, there can be no doubt about it, has become immensely the University of California, Santa Barbara, and I am greatly important in our time. More human beings than ever before see indebted to Professor H. Porter Abbott and Professor Paul more drama than ever before and are more directly influenced, Hemadi whose initiative and help made it possible. conditioned, programmed by drama than ever before. Drama I am also grateful to my students who attended a graduate has become one of the principal vehicles of information, one of seminar I gave in the semiotics of drama at Stanford and whose j the prevailing methods of ‘thinking’ about life and its situa­ cntical contributions to the discussion did much to clarify some tions. ! of my ideas. Our time has witnessed a veritable explosion of drama My friend Archana Horsting contributed valuable comments through the photographic and electronic mass media. Where, and ideas. Mr Peter Luddington, of Grant & Cutler Ltd., ; previously, stage drama, live theatre, was the only method for on on, enabled me to obtain books on the subject in a number 1 the communication of dramatic performance, today dramatic a??ua®es ~ ^ere are few bookshops left in the world capable performance can reach its audiences in a multitude of ways: ! giving such truly scholarly bibliographical assistance. through the cinema, television, videotape, radio, cassette- And my special thanks are due to Mr Nicholas Hern of recordings. Consequently not only has the audience for drama Methuen’s, as editor of rar e expertise and patience. increased by truly astronomical progression as compared to Martin Esslin previous ages, the actual quantity of dramatic performances Winchelsea, Sussex produced has gone up in equal proportion. August 1986 ! Hence the immensely increased importance of drama in the m -■ ••• life and culture of our time: never before has drama been so ) ! pervasive in the lives of the large masses of people. Gone are the days when experience of a dramatic performance was either a i rare feast-day occurrence; or restricted to the social elites of courts; or accessible only to the more affluent classes in the ! larger cities. Drama has become one of the principal means of i communication of ideas and, even more importantly, modes of I i ••• [■ 1■ - ■ 14 Introduction ■ Introduction 15 in­ human behaviour in our civilisation: drama provides some of b’:/ the principal role models by which individuals form their upon an audience. The famous rules about the unities of time, place and action derive from the assumption that, for example, f identity and ideals, sets patterns of communal behaviour, forms ! people sitting in a theatre would find it difficult to believe that values and aspirations, and has become pan of the collective ! the stage could represent different locations within the span of a fantasy life of the masses - with the adventures of the heroes of I single play, lasting an hour; and that, similarly, they would find television series, the comic characters of situation comedy, the it impossible to credit an action unfolding itself within that hour powerful demi-gods of the cinema taking the place occupied by as comprising events occurring over months or years, that, in the heroes of the popular culture, folklore and myth of previous j fact, the most they could accept would be the compression of ages. | the events of a single day into that hour. More than ever, therefore, there is a need for us to under- j Our own experience has shown that these assumptions by stand what drama can and cannot express, how it formulates 1 Aristotle, which dominated the practice of drama in so many and transmits its messages, what techniques it employs to j places for such long periods are incorrect, at least as far as convey them to its audience and how that audience can and does present-day audiences are concerned, although it may, indeed, grasp, ingest and understand the meaning of these messages - well be that they were wholly valid for spectators in Aristotle’s explicit or implicit, consciously understood or subliminally j own time. We must never forget that human capacities can absorbed. change through time: human beings may learn to adjust them­ hat is why it should be worthwhile to attempt to look, in the selves to new ways of perception, to increase their speed of g t of the fundamental technological changes of the last hun- reaction, and gain practice in accepting new ways of seeing and e years and their impact on dramatic performance in its experiencing both reality and art. Children growing up now- m of dmand kS ^ mCdia of lransmission> uP°n ^ whole adays who see several hours of drama on television each day must be infinitely more effectively conditioned to accept and under­ mW. hat arethe means by which drama achieves its impact? I stand dramatic conventions than earlier populations who may *c 0 these are employed, in common, by all the various have had far fewer opportunities to experience dramatic per­ ji ^ And which are specific to one or several among formance. what ways do the effects of the different dramatic Yet, if Aristotle’s approach was based on practical considera­ 3 audiences varY> and why? And - how do they tions, dramatic criticism has, in the course of time, also fre­ a y m uence, how can they learn from, each other? quently succumbed to the temptations of becoming all too w e ve7. beginnings of theoretical thinking about the abstract, of slavishly following authorities of the past (above all ! woL effects the questi°n °f h°w drama : Aristotle’s Poetics themselves, having become hardened into rigid dogma), excessively divorced from the practice of the art . t een approached in a severely practical wmoarnkn earh: riftode S P°etics (the most influential theoretical j and, even more dangerously, of growing excessively theoreti­ sinn* ™ r, f31113 m *ts w^°^e long history) derives its conclu- cal. More attention, for example, was, at one time, devoted to the analysis of, say, the characters of Shakespeare, as though ’ f C 3Ve °^ten assumed the authority of unbreakable ofch’r considerations of what kinds of actions, what kinds |uey were real people, than to the more mundane problem of rs would exercise the most powerful emotional effect ow Shakespeare actually delineated character. This, ultimately, [ I i6 / ntroduciion Introduction 17 amounted, and still amounts, to a concentration on the content of drama (important though that clearly is) rather than on the I time and place of the action, the events which form its ‘plot’ are delineated, a semiotic approach can shed valuable light on the | . meansand methods by which drama conveys its contents. Yet the * ' process of how an audience comes to apprehend the basic dichotomy between content and form is a false one, because I outline of the dramatic action, the very ground from which the form determines content and content form and a change of form complex and multifarious higher levels of meaning of the per­ alters the content, and a change of content requires a different formance will ultimately arise for the audience. form to express it. And so, to neglect a closer analysis of the There has been a great upsurge of interest and research in the often very mundane methods by which meaning is conveyed in semiotics of theatre in recent years and much valuable work has drama is to inhibit an understanding in depth of the essential ! been done by a number of semioticians, above all in France, considerations upon which truly insightful - and constructive- I Germany and Italy. The present study proposes to make use of criticism must be based. j their results, but to maintain, at the same time, a certain critical All the elements of a dramatic performance - the language of j distance from their methods and aims. the dialogue, the setting, the gestures, costumes, make-up and ! voice-inflections of the actors, as well as a multitude of other I 2 signs - each m their own way contribute to the creation of the I The semiotics of drama in its present form originated at the meaning’ of the performance. A dramatic performance must, I beginning of this century - from the work of the Russian at the most basic level, be regarded as essentially a process by I formalist critics who began to develop ways of looking at the w c information about the actions that are to be mimetically j formal aspects of works of literature by close analysis of how reproduced is conveyed to the audience. Each element of the j they are actually producing their effects; followers of this pe ormance can be regarded as a sign that stands for an ingre- tendency, largely in Prague in the 1930s, began to apply this Se°acdonVer’a 1 bfa scene>an incident, a moment method to drama. They were, at the same time, also inspired by the work of the two great pioneers of the new approach that has exnlltp S^CC ^ges attempts have been made to ! been the basis of the current development of semiotics: Ferdi­ In rhp ^stemadze our understanding of how signs work, j nand de Saussure (1857-1913), the father of modem linguis­ crearinn f k j?ntury dlese efforts have been intensified in the j tics, (whose ‘Course in General Linguistics’ was reconstructed reanon of the isapUne 0f Semiotics, the branch of knowledge j from their lecture notes and posthumously published by some 1 betwppn ! TS 311(1 how signs are used in communication of his pupils in 1916), and the great American philosopher » j between human beings to convey Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914). methodsPoaching the dramatic media with some 0o1f tuhiwe Saussure treated language as a system of signs - and both he open un d i S ^ Semiotics has made available we can and Peirce then extended the idea by pointing out that, in fact, language is just one, among many, systems of signs - pictures, apDroarli t °wn“t0"earthj highly practical and concrete drama Rv ° C- Vnderstan<^ng and critical appreciation of gestures, manners, movements, and a whole host of others - and that, to understand how human beings communicate about veys the, by what means, what signs, drama con- built ud niJ? ^formation through which the dramatic fiction is the world and themselves, an analysis of all these different systems of signs would be useful and productive. That field of 5 ce y piece, and through which the characters, the i j 1 !

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