Acts and apparitions : discourses on the real in performance practice and theory, 1990-2010 / Liz Tomlin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tomlin, Liz, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater--20th century--History and criticism.

Theater.

Theater--21st century--History and criticism.

Realism.

Theater and philosophy.

Authors and theater.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 226 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2013.

Summary:

This book examines how new performance practices from the 1990s to the present day have been driven by questions of the real and the ensuing political implications of the concept's rapidly disintegrating authority. The first part of the book addresses the existing poststructuralist narrative of radicalism that currently dominates contemporary performance theory, and seeks to deconstruct its conclusions. It first traces the artistic and philosophical developments that laid the ground for the sustained twentieth-century interrogations of theatrical representations of the real. It examines the emergence of the discursive act which aligned the narrative of radicalism exclusively with such interrogations. The book also examines how key strands of Derrida's poststructuralist critique have been applied to performance practice to strengthen the ideological binary opposition between 'dramatic' representations of the real and 'postdramatic' deconstructions of representational practice. The second part of the book embarks on an ideological examination of a wide spectrum of performance models that share an engagement with the problematics of representation and the real. It directs this investigation specifically towards an analysis of the representations of 'real' people in performances which adopt verbatim methodologies drawn from the documentary theatre tradition. The book continues to explore performance environments that break down the dichotomy of performer/spectator and seeks to replace mediated representations with experiential realities.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I: The discursive act

1 Discourses of resistance: representation and the real in the twentieth-century avant-gardes

2 Deconstructing the postdramatic: questions of mimesis, authorship and representation

Part II: Apparitions of the real

3 Quoting quotations: citational theory and contemporary characterisation

4 Representing the real: verbatim practice in a sceptical age

5 Re-membering the real: experiential challenges to the medium of theatrical representation

6 From spect-actor to corporate player: reconfigurations of twenty-first-century audiences

Afterword

References

Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 13 Mar 2026).

Includes bibliographical references (pages 210-221) and index.

ISBN:

1-5261-3074-2

OCLC:

1085658558