Dramaturgy

[review]: 'On Directing and Dramaturgy: Burning the House' by Eugenio Barba

by Sam Bicknell

in Contemporary Theatre Review 20 (4), pp. 487-8

Review of Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare. Scott Newstok, ed.

by Andrew Battista

The Performative Body: Symbolic Interactionism, Dramaturgy, Affect, and the Sociology of the Body

by Phillip Vannini

Co-authored with Dennis Waskul, forthcoming in the Handbook of Dramaturgy, edited by Charles Edgley (Ashgate, 2013)

“Expanded Dramaturgical Thinking: Dramaturgies #4,”

by Jonathan W. Marshall

"RealTime Australia," 96 (24 May 2010).

"Opera en abyme: The Prodigious Ritual of Korngold's Die tote Stadt," Cambridge Opera Journal 22:2 (2011), 115-46.

by William Cheng

"Romantic Drama." Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literary History. Oxford University Press, 2006.

by Michael Gamer

"Gothic Shakespeare on the Romantic Stage." Co-written with Robert Miles. Gothic Shakespeare. Ed. John Drakasis and Dale Townsend. Accents on Shakespeare series. Routledge, 2008.

by Michael Gamer

"Gothic Shakespeare on the Romantic Stage." Co-written with Robert Miles. Gothic Shakespeare. Ed. John Drakasis and Dale Townsend. Accents on Shakespeare series. Routledge, 2008.

by Michael Gamer

Rethinking Kink: Sadomasochism as Serious Leisure

by Staci Newmahr

Based on extensive ethnographic research in a public SM (sadomasochism) community, this paper frames SM as recreation.... more Based on extensive ethnographic research in a public SM (sadomasochism) community, this paper frames SM as recreation. Drawing on Robert Stebbins’ work on “serious leisure” (1982), I posit that in order to more adequately understand SM as it occurs in this community, we need to shift from mainstream assumptions of SM as (simply) “kinky sex” to a more nuanced perspective. I explore the unique skills required in order to engage in SM, as well as the benefits and rewards that participants derive from it, in order to illustrate that SM can be more usefully understood as serious leisure.

Blurring fiction with reality: the strange case of Amnesia, an Italian radio mockumentary

by Tiziano Bonini

published in: Gazi A., Starkey G., Jedrzejewski S., Radio content in the Digital Age: the evolution of a sound medium, Londra, Intellect Books, 2011.

Amnésia is a mockumentary that tells the story of a young man, Matteo Caccia, a former speaker of the Italian public... more Amnésia is a mockumentary that tells the story of a young man, Matteo Caccia, a former speaker of the Italian public radio, who suffered from a form of amnesia which erased all memories from the first 32 years of his life.
Amnesia is the story of a man who is living every day as it was the first. Every day Matteo tells listeners about his new life, using the language of radio and multimedia.The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles was the first radio drama that blurred fiction with reality.Different theories tried to understand audience reactions to that broadcast. Welles was the first toshow us how media representations of reality could be realistic but false at the same time. Many years have passed since that radio drama was aired; audiences have become accustomed to a more complex mediascape and have refined their media expertise; however, the case of Italian serial radiodrama Amnesia shows us how radio can still play a powerful role in structuring and conditioning audience beliefs.This paper will describe the format of Amnesia and the way it blurred fiction with reality, experimenting with the genre of drama. The study will also show different audience reactions to the programme (believers vs. non-believers) through an analysis of listeners' emails.

The Theatre of Transition: Boguslaw Schaeffer and the Polish Stage of the Brave New World

by Magda Romanska

Toronto Slavic Quarterly (2004) No.9.

ALLES is an original play. It has never been performed or published before. This translation is based on Schaeffer's... more ALLES is an original play. It has never been performed or published before. This translation is based on Schaeffer's own manuscript. The play tells a story of a Bonny-and-Clyde-style couple, a brother and sister, named Alles and Sorella, who team up to play a con trick on a group of job applicants. For Alles, the driving mechanism is the sense of power and self-importance in relationship to those whom he "interviews" for the position of his butler.The applicants are only recognized by numbers. They are dispensable and clueless. Like Ionesco's Rhinoceros, ALLES represents a brute force of iron will with neither scruples nor ethical consideration. A blend of Pirandello's self-referentiality, Beckett's grotesque, Durang's absurd cynicism and Vinaver's social critique of corporate structures, the play is an opus on the modern human condition.

‘Dream and Not’: The Instrumental Theatre of Boguslaw Schaeffer

by Magda Romanska

Slovo, University College of London (2008) Vol. 20. No. 2.

An analysis and original translation by Dr Magda Romanska of Bogusław Schaeffer's play Dream and Not: Theatrical Play... more An analysis and original translation by Dr Magda Romanska of Bogusław Schaeffer's play Dream and Not: Theatrical Play in the Form of Instrumental Concerto. In her analysis, Romanska elucidates Schaeffer's surreal play about a 'perfect' family imprisoned by its own rhetoric. Written by Schaeffer in 1998, Dream and Not is a play that follows the musical contours of a concerto; scenes are labelled by their Italian musical counterparts and the piece develops in three parts (acts). Romanska's translation, praised by Schaeffer himself, honours the nuance of the original while exposing Schaeffer's work to the English-speaking world.

Boguslaw Schaeffer’s ‘HereThere’ – The Return to ‘Pure Form.’

by Magda Romanska

The Mercurian: A Theatrical Translation Review (2009) Vol. 2, No.1.

By the time he wrote HereThere, Schaeffer was already a respected and sought-after playwright. HereThere is one of his... more By the time he wrote HereThere, Schaeffer was already a respected and sought-after playwright. HereThere is one of his most popular plays, and it represents some typical elements of Schaeffer’s dramaturgy. The play consists of 19 short scenes that take place in a corner café. It is an unconventional love story of two couples. One of them is a pair, described as VOICES, of uneducated wait staff at the café. He is a crude and vulgar macho man with pretenses and an over-inflated ego. She’s a bemused, uncouth kitchen helper dreaming of a prince charming who will save her from an all-too-predictable future, but also, to some degree, from herself. The other couple, HE and SHE, are sophisticated urbanites who regularly visit the café to read and drink coffee. HE is presumably a not very successful writer. SHE is an intellectual with an air of self-importance. Discussing love, death, and fate over their books and coffee, they slowly fall in love. Their story takes place at the front of the café, and it is presented as the main plot. Although the VOICES appear on the stage periodically (mainly to serve the front guests, HIM and HER), their story, on the contrary, takes place in the shadow of what happens Here, at the front of the café. There, backstage in the kitchen, love is a brutal and lonely affair of underdogs. Here, at the forefront of social facade, love is woven from a web of illusions, structured and sustained by conventions and convenience.

Bogusław Schaeffer: Poland’s Renaissance Man

by Magda Romanska

Cosmopolitan Review (Winter 2011-12) Vol. 3 No. 4

Pushing the boundaries for the past six decades, Bogusław Schaeffer was still blazing the way at the Edinburgh Fringe... more Pushing the boundaries for the past six decades, Bogusław Schaeffer was still blazing the way at the Edinburgh Fringe last year with “one of the best productions since the festival was launched several dozen years ago.” Magda Romanska profiles a Renaissance man.

Hamlet, Masculinity and the Nineteenth-Century Nationalism

by Magda Romanska

Published in "Ghosts, Stories, Histories: Ghost Stories and Alterative Histories." Ed. Sladja Blazan Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2007).

FROM THE EDITOR:

"Magda Romanska argues that with the rise of nationalism in late nineteenth-century... more FROM THE EDITOR:

"Magda Romanska argues that with the rise of nationalism in late nineteenth-century Europe, the pattern of the patriarchal covenant in Hamlet paralleled the process of nation-building. Hamlet’s filial loyalty toward his Father’s ghost was perceived as a symbol of
patriotic loyalty towards one’s nation/Father-land. Conversely, as a “gift of death” that cements the patriarchal contract, Ophelia became a model of the nineteenth-century feminine ideal."

OpheliaMachine: Gender, Ethics and Representation in Heiner Muller's "Hamletmachine"

by Magda Romanska

Published in "The Cultural Politics of Heiner Muller," Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.

FROM THE EDITOR:

"Magda Romanska in her chapter, provides a brilliant literary and political analysis... more FROM THE EDITOR:

"Magda Romanska in her chapter, provides a brilliant literary and political analysis of Muller's use of the character of Ophelia in his signature play. She traces German's culture use of Ophelia (and Hamlet) from the late 18th Century to the present -- in drama, poetry, the fine arts and psychology -- and explores how the various images, articulations, and manifestations of Ophelia and Hamlet fed into to the coming-into-being German nationalism of the 19th Century and, at the same time, contributed to the specifics of gender identity within German culture. In doing so, Romanska traces the cross-fertilization (if you will) between the shaping of gender and the shaping of nation in Germany. Showing how Muller made use of all this cultural baggage, Romanska provides a non-polemica look at Muller's own conflicted relationship -- in "Hamletmachine" and elsewhere -- to the radical feminism of the late 20th Century. In so doing, she provides not only an erudite look at Muller's digging up of the dead in "Hamletmachine," but points forward to this volume's third section which explores Muller in relationship to the unfolding political culture of the 21st Century."

Between History and Memory: Auschwitz in Akropolis, Akropolis in Auschwitz

by Magda Romanska

Theatre Survey (2009) Vol. 50, No.2: 223-250.

AWARDS:

2011 AQUILA POLONICA ARTICLE PRIZE

The biennial prize, funded by Aquila Polonica... more AWARDS:

2011 AQUILA POLONICA ARTICLE PRIZE

The biennial prize, funded by Aquila Polonica Publishing, is awarded by the Polish Studies Association to the author of "the best article written in English during the previous two years on any aspect of Polish studies."

FROM THE AWARD COMMITTEE:

Romanska’s article "succeeds taking a relatively difficult and opaque subject, Grotowski’s 1962 re-staging of Wyspiański’s Akropolis against the background of Auschwitz, both accessible and rewarding for readers who are not specialists in Polish theatre. While Romanska’s analysis remains grounded in theatre, and her conclusion is ultimately about theatrical production, she raises many questions about history, memory, and national mythology that most readers will want to learn more about. What is particularly impressive is the scope of the article, which ranges over the entire twentieth century. [...] Romanska’s work makes a convincing argument that we need to be paying more attention to theatre in Poland."

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2010 GERALD KAHAN SCHOLAR'S PRIZE

Awarded by the American Society for Theatre Research, for “best essay written and published in English in a refereed scholarly journal.” The winning essay is judged as "displaying originality in the broad field of theatre and performance, exhibiting critical rigor, showing an acquaintance with related research in theatre and performance, and promising future professional development in the field.”

FROM THE AWARD COMMITTEE:

Romanska’s essay offers“an excellent unpacking of both Stanislaw Wyspianski’s 1904 drama, Akropolis, and its production history. Her essay made use of extensive sources to tell a complicated story-layered text, performance, and context, paying attention to the original script as well as performances, especially, those directed by Jerzy Grotowski. The essay provides a missing, though essential, analysis of a production that is often cited, but perhaps rarely understood in its full context. The methods of historiography and documentary analysis are excellent and provide an instructive model for future performance scholarship.”

Drama and Context in Real-Time Virtual Environments: Use of Pre-Scripted Events as a Part of an Interactive Spatial Mediation Framework

by Stanislav Roudavski

Cite as: Nitsche, Michael, Stanislav Roudavski, Maureen Thomas and François Penz (2003). 'Drama and Context in Real-Time Virtual Environments: Use of Pre-Scripted Events as a Part of an Interactive Spatial Mediation Framework', in Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment, ed. by Stefan Göbel et al. (Darmstadt: Fraunhofer IRB Verlag), pp. 296-310

We suggest that the dramatically engaging mediation of an experience of place should be built in as a fundamental... more We suggest that the dramatically engaging mediation of an experience of place should be built in as a fundamental capability of a compelling and meaningful virtual environment (VE). Our main objective is to develop flexible interactive techniques that supply VE’s with a coherent context and make the resulting ‘virtual place’ available to the user in a dramatically engaging way. To support the concept of narrative expressive space, we propose a three-layer multi-purpose spatial mediation framework that utilizes an interactive narrative structure to coordinate stylized dramatic camera work, lighting, effects and sound. We then describe the use of pre-scripted events as a layer in this framework and explain the inherent benefits and problems, using a single-user prototype environment as illustration. The work offers guidelines for the design of VE’s to all fields that combine narrativity and spatiality, such as interactive entertainment, education and architecture.

Building Cuthbert Hall Virtual College As a Dramatically Engaging Environment

by Stanislav Roudavski

Cite as: Nitsche, Michael, Stanislav Roudavski, Maureen Thomas and François Penz (2002). 'Building Cuthbert Hall Virtual College As a Dramatically Engaging Environment', in Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2002, ed. by Thomas Binder, Judith Gregory and Ina Wagner (Palo Alto: CPSR), pp. 386-390

This paper outlines the interdisciplinary nature, collaborative work patterns and role of aesthetics in the Cuthbert... more This paper outlines the interdisciplinary nature, collaborative work patterns and role of aesthetics in the Cuthbert Hall Virtual College research project at the Cambridge University Moving Image Studio (CUMIS) and the Centre for Applied Research in Education Technology (CARET). The project identifies key properties of dramatically engaging real-time three-dimensional virtual environments (RT 3D VE) and how the holistic experiential phenomenon of place is organised and mediated through spatial narrative patterns. Interdisciplinary by nature, the project requires a collaborative approach between science, engineering, media and architecture, and the results are revealing for all these areas. The Cuthbert Hall project invites discussion of the importance in the creation and use of RT 3D VE’s - under single and multi-user conditions - of articulate aesthetics (the quality of architectural, visual and audio design; the production and incorporation of dramatic properties) and of the conditions required for collaborative, communicative use of the environment.

The full theoretical and technical discussions as well as the evaluation results are outside the scope of this submission.

Д.Д.Николаев. Драматические произведения В.В.Набокова и драматургия русского зарубежья // 'Nabokov's dramas and dramatic works of russian emigration' by D.D.Nikolaev

by Dmitry D. Nikolaev

Published in: Acta Philologica: Филологические записки. 2007. - №1.- С.215-239