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The New Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2021

Michael Kirby
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Extract

Since the turn of the century, most art forms have vastly expanded their materials and scope. Totally abstract or non-objective painting and sculpture, unheard of in 1900, is practiced by many major artists today. Composers tend to discard traditional Western scales and harmonies, and atonal music is relatively common. Poetry has abandoned rhyme, meter, and syntax. Almost alone among the arts, theatre has lagged. But during the last few years there have been a number of performances that begin to bring theatre into some relation with the other arts. These works, as well as productions in other performance-oriented fields, force us to examine theatre in a new light and raise questions about the meaning of the word “theatre” itself.

In discussing this new theatre, new terms are needed. A few have already been provided by public usage, although they need clarification and standardization. Others will have to be created. Accurate nomenclature is important—not for the sake of limitation but to facilitate easy, accurate, and creative exchange among those concerned with the work and its concepts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Tulane Drama Review , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Winter 1965 , pp. 23 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © The Tulane Drama Review 1965

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References

1 Of course the behavior in “real life” and on stage might not be exactly the same. A particular emotional reaction to facing an audience in the theatre situation could be expected. But while created or acted emotions are part of character matrix, real emotions are not. The question of emotion will be touched on again below.

2 Thus it is not essentially the degree of correlation between the written script and the performance which makes a theatre piece “literary.” Whether or not it began from written material, any production, no matter how alogical, may be described in words, and the description could then be used as the literary basis for another production. On the other hand, there is the additional question of the latitude of interpretation allowed by a printed script—e.g., George Brecht's Exit, the “score” of which consists in its entirety of the single word with no directions or suggestions for interpretation and realization. Any written material, and even non-verbal material, may serve as the “script” for a performance.

3 The use of stage presence is an aesthetic question. Some performances place a high degree of emphasis upon it, while in others it is intentionally excluded or performers are employed because they are somewhat ill at ease.

4 Although traditional dance movements and techniques are not excluded, this emphasis on relatively simple kinds of movement has led to the style being labeled “anti-dance.” In lieu of a more accurate term, the name has some usefulness, but the intent of the dancers is not to oppose or destroy dance but to eliminate what seems to be unnecessary conventions and restrictions, to approach movement in a fresh way, and to open new formal areas.