The silver stage: Theatre in the age of mechanical reproduction
Bleam, Jeffrey Robert, «The silver stage: Theatre in the age of mechanical reproduction». Ph.D., , Ann Arbor, United States 2005
Abstract
Implicit in its subtitle (“Theatre in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”), this study begins with a rejection of Walter Benjamin’s assurance that the theatrical arts are immune from the ideological processes inherent in mechanical reproduction. I seek to argue that as theatre artists and encultured subjects in general, we process information and form perceptual strategies through a series of frames created and encouraged by the representational field of the larger visual culture at specific times and societies. I contend that these frames and strategies do not change over time so much as they accumulate; furthermore, that they derive from what, at a given time, is the dominant and often “popular” mode of representation—a mode more often than not resulting from the techniques of mechanical reproduction (the union of technology and representation). Methodologically, I draw upon a variety of approaches including the tenets of visual culture studies, Lakoff and Johnson’s notion of embodied metaphors, and Henri Lefebvre’s conception of space as a circulation of social illusions. In each chapter, I examine the practice and implications of a particular mode of technological representation. I then describe how that mode, either overtly or latently, introduced new possibilities for theatrical representation. Finally, I suggest that both practices reflect and impel the means whereby the spectator-subject perceives the world and positions themselves within it. My first chapter deals with photography in nineteenth century France and the emergence of the “fourth wall” stage convention. My second chapter, in two parts, deals with cinema, the emerging debate of “theatre vs. cinema” and the practices of American New Stagecraft. The third chapter discusses television in relation to perceptual codes, subject-formation, and the avant-garde movement from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.
Other data
Number of pages: 237
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URL: https://search.proquest.com/docview/305430772/abstract/B495AAD9CDC54742PQ/5
Language: Inglese
key: KAR3XLR6