Performance theory / Richard Schechner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schechner, Richard, 1934-

Series:

Routledge classics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater.

Physical Description:

xix, 407 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm.

Edition:

Rev and expanded edition, with a new preface by the author.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2003.

Summary:

Few have had quite as much impact in both the academy and in the world of theater production as Richard Schechner. For more than four decades his work has challenged conventional definitions of theater, ritual, and performance. When this seminal collection first appeared, Schechner's approach was not only novel, it was revolutionary: drama is not just something that occurs on stage, but something full of meaning operating on many levels in everyday life, in both secular and sacred rituals, play, sports, legal processes, and popular entertainments. Within these pages he examines the connections between Western and non-Western cultures, the performing arts, anthropology, rituals, performance in everyday life, playing, psychotherapy, and shamanism. For this Routledge Classics edition, Schechner has written a new preface, revised and updated Chapter 1 and added a final chapter. Unparalleled within his field, Schechner redefined what performance means, and in doing so, has contested the boundaries that separate audience and actor ever since.

Contents:

Introduction: The Fan and the Web xvii

1 Approaches 1

2 Actuals 26

3 Drama, script, theater, and performance 66

4 From ritual to theater and back: the efficacy

entertainment braid 112

5 Toward a poetics of performance 170

6 Selective inattention 211

7 Ethology and theater 235

8 Magnitudes of performance 290

9 Rasaesthetics 333.

Notes:

Previous ed.: 1988.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [368]-382) and index.

ISBN:

0415314550

OCLC:

52485434